


For the Heirs to Come, Be Brave

by ameraleigh



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action, Apocalypse, Character Death, Drama, Jared Padalecki - Freeform, Jensen Ackles - Freeform, M/M, Misha Collins - Freeform, Sexual References, Supernatural - Freeform, Supernatural and J2 Big Bang Challenge, coarse language, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 12:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19768657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameraleigh/pseuds/ameraleigh
Summary: What would you do if you woke up and the whole world was gone, what if normal became anything but, Jensen Ackles has been separated from everyone he loves as the world around him literally crumbles. In a desperate bid to reunite with his childhood best friend, Jared, Jensen risks life and limb to find him so that they can track down their loved ones and find somewhere safe to ride out the end of the world.Along the way, they have to fend off Mother Nature's wrath as she gives them everything she's got as well as the desperate survivors who will stop at nothing to make it out alive.34,000+ words





	1. Echoes and the Shots Rings Out

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration for this story came from SVRCINA - MEET ME ON THE BATTLEFIELD. 
> 
> As always, a huge thank you to wendy for orgainizing this year after year.
> 
> My awesome artist thesaltyghost for her creative artwork, so go and check it out. Art
> 
> And to my beta Kirsty for her last minute help.

As he watched his beloved childhood dog, Jax, dive under the water for the tennis ball, a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.

A moment later, Jax's head broke through the surface, the ratty old tennis ball was clenched between his teeth and he paddled his way back to the river bank.

They had been at this game for about half an hour now but he would never grow tired of spending time with him.

Jax had been a Christmas present when he was eight years old. He was a family pet but even from the beginning, he had favored Jared.

The old boy was nearing a decade and it showed in his dark brown eyes and it was starting to show in his movements.

But he still loved to come down to the river to play fetch, they had been doing it for so many years that if they stopped now, it would be like part of him was missing.

Jax dropped the ball at his feet and Jared leaned down to pick it up.

As he raised his arm to throw the ball again, he thought he felt a slight tremor under his feet.

Glancing around, he tried to locate the source of the shaking but he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary and they were too far away from the roads for it to be traffic.

When nothing eventuated, he glanced down at Jax who let out an impatient bark, so Jared tossed the ball back into the water and Jax dove after it with great enthusiasm.

Exhaling sharply, he took a step closer to the water as he felt another tremor.

His heart began to race and fear flooded through him as he was knocked off his feet as the ground distinctly rolled underneath him.

He had hit the ground hard, his elbow caught on a rock and even though he couldn't see it, he knew that there was blood.

As he sat up, he felt a pain in his side but he tried to ignore it as he got to his feet.

With the ground still moving, he anxiously called out to Jax but the dog hadn't paid any mind to the shaking, he did, however, respond to the fear in Jared's voice as he continued to call out to him.

Jax came out of the water and trotted across the rocks where he proceeded to shake the water from his coat as Jared snatched up the tennis ball and shoved it into his pocket.

He swallowed hard around the lump that had formed in his throat as he noticed the water begins to churn and swirl. It became so aggressive and rose so quickly that it soon broke its banks and he stumbled backward to get away from it.

The heel of his shoe caught on a rock and he had to steady himself before he spun around and began to run.

The pain in his side grew in intensity but he pushed through it and kept running. Jax kept a nice pace with him and despite his aging bones, he overtook him as they moved across the field.

The ground rolled and rumbled under his feet as they moved swiftly through the long, dry grass. It scratched at his arms and legs but he had no choice but to ignore the small marks that appeared on his skin.

At six feet and two inches tall, the grass barely came to his shoulder, so he was clearly able to make out the horizon.

The house that he had grown up in came into view and the simple fact that he could see it, offered him a small amount of comfort in his current state of panic.

A small flock of grasshopper sparrows emerged with a flurry of squawks as he sprinted past their resting spot.

As the ground continued to shake violently, he moved as fast as he could possibly manage, his breath came out in short ragged gasps and he had to force himself to keep going.

Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and he used the back of his hand to wipe away the perspiration.

An old rotting tree stump seemed to come out of nowhere and he had to quickly change course to avoid colliding with it.

Every stride made his lungs burn, every gasp of breath stung the back of his throat and now an ache had formed in his right knee.

But he couldn't stop.

He had to put as much distance between himself and the river as he could, his very life may depend on it.

The house became a much larger object now, he was close enough to see the spare car parked in the driveway and as he kept running, he could make out the windows, specifically his sister's bedroom window that she had left open and the curtains were fluttering in the breeze.

He was so close now, just a hundred yards or so from the back door.

When he finally stepped onto the manicured grass of the backyard, he allowed himself just a brief moment to catch his breath.

His lungs were grateful for the reprieve but he could only give himself a minute, he needed to get inside to safety.

As he stood upright, he saw Jax waiting for him at the kitchen door so he dashed across the yard toward him.

He reached out for the handle but hesitated, a chill crept down his spine and he glanced over his shoulder.

He couldn't see anything but of course that didn't mean that there wasn't anything there.

Pushing open the door, he stepped into the kitchen; Jax darted past him and ran toward his bowl which sat on the floor at the end of the counter.

He walked over to the sink and picked up the glass he had used earlier that morning and he quickly filled it to the top.

But as another chill washed over him, he placed the glass down and then suddenly doubled over in pain, he pressed his hands to his knees and sucked in as much air as he could muster.

When the pain began to subside, he felt it again, a vibration under his feet and his panic levels rose in response.

The vibrations steadily grew in intensity, so strong in fact that he was caught a little off guard and stumbled.

Reaching out, he grabbed at the counter as Jax stood there, staring up at him.

The shaking didn't subside; it grew stronger with every passing moment.

He grasped the counter with both hands now, so hard in fact that his knuckles turned white.

The house shook around him as he heard the windows in the living room shatter and the small knick knacks and photo frames clattered to the floor.

A series of shrill barks echoed around him and he glanced toward the door.

Jax just stood there, staring at something that only he could see.

As he drew in a deep breath, he suddenly heard the sound of rushing water and he just knew that it was heading straight for him.

Steadying himself, he made his way across the room and grabbed at Jax's collar and held on as tight as he could as he felt the water crash into the side of the house.

It poured in through every nook and cranny and before he knew it, it was already at knee level.

Jax barked again and knowing that he had to do something, he leaned down and scooped the slightly too heavy dog into his arms and held on for dear life.

He had to find a way out of there, the water was rising so quickly and he feared that if he didn't do something now, there wouldn't be a later.

As he waded through the murky water, it tried to push him back but he had to get to the stairs.

The amount of water that was filling the house was mind-boggling, the river was a fairly decent size but it surely didn't contain this amount, so where was it coming from?

As he moved, he felt Jax wriggle in his arms and when he finally reached the staircase, he dropped Jax who then bolted up the stairs and waited for him on the landing.

He pulled himself up and out of the water and half walked, half crawled up the stairs.

A moment later, he stood on the landing and watched as the water continued to rise.

Jax barked again and then tugged at the hem of his shorts, glancing down, he smiled sadly at the dog before he backed away from the top step.

When he thought that things couldn't possibly get any worse, a loud, painful buzzing sound echoed around him, it became so intense that he had to cover his ears.

He couldn't help the scream that escaped his lips, the fear of the unknown crippled him and he tried to prepare himself for the worst.

Unsure of how much time had passed or exactly what had happened, he awoke to the feeling of hands on his shoulders, shaking him out of his slumber.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself staring up at a familiar face but it wasn't one that he was expecting.

"Jared, can you hear me?"

"Mr. Pelegrino?"

"Yeah kid, its Mark. Can you sit up?"

He helped Jared into a sitting position and as he glanced around, he saw that he was still on the second-floor landing and his heart sank when he realized that the house was still full of water.

"What the hell happened?" Jared asked as he ran his hand through his hair.

The movement caused the pain in his side to flare up again and he flinched.

"Don't know for sure exactly," Mark answered. "But the news was reporting a major earthquake hit north of here. There's a ton of damage and flooding. We have to get out of here, kid."

He helped Jared get to his feet and after checking to make sure that Jax was okay, he went into his room and quickly packed a bag before joining Mark back on the landing.

"How did you know that I was here?"

"Your parents told us that you were staying behind while they were out-of-town," he replied. "Asked us to keep an eye out."

"Umm, okay yeah," Jared replied. "Wait... where are we going?"

"The news said that if you're able to get to the town hall, they're evacuating people from there."

"Evacuating?" Jared said as he swallowed around the lump that had formed in his throat.

Mark nodded back at him. "Afraid so, Tess and the kids are waiting in a boat."

Jared cocked an eyebrow at him. "What?"

Mark pointed to the water, it wasn't as high as it was earlier but it was still there and it was still a problem.

"It's the only way we're getting out of here."

Jared put his backpack on and then leaned down to pick up Jax and they slowly made their way downstairs and into the water.

Jared gasped loudly when the water hit him, it was freezing.

When Mark pushed open the kitchen door, Jared glanced past him and saw the boat, he also counted about eight people.

As they waded through the waist-high water toward it, Mark helped get Jax into the boat before they climbed in.

Hugging the dog tightly, Jared looked on in horror at the damage that had been caused.

As they made their way toward town, the destruction seemed impossible, like something out of a movie.

Houses that he had gone past a million times were destroyed; nothing left standing but the foundations.

Trees that he had climbed when he was a child had been knocked over, the streets he had ridden his bike on were underwater

It didn't seem real and a part of him wondered if he was dreaming all of this, that just maybe he was back in his house, asleep in his bed.

But reality came crashing back when the boat suddenly swerved to the right and as he looked out, he saw a row of cars, their roofs barely visible amongst the debris.

He tightened his grip on Jax as they journeyed toward town, as the houses became more frequent, closer together, he noticed the broken windows, chimneys that had collapsed and taken parts of the roof with them.

The trees that had fallen, crushing the sides of the houses and as they kept going, more and more houses no longer stood, the earthquake had let them as nothing more than firewood.

The high school came into view and he stared in bewilderment at the utter devastation.

The admin building was gone and he couldn't see the gymnasium roof anymore.

If there had been people inside, he feared that they wouldn't have made it.

As they rushed past the rows and rows of storefronts, the windows smashed, walls caving in, he knew for sure that the people who had been going about their daily shopping, would have only survived by a miracle.

As they got closer to the town hall, he saw other boats full of survivors, more than he maybe thought possible given the destruction but he was relieved at just how many there were.

He could hear people screaming and an alarm was blaring out.

Sirens and lights from several fire engines came into view as they rounded the corner.

The water was still at waist height, and people were desperately trying to get up the steps and into the town hall.

As they got closer, he could see their faces, some were so badly injured that he wouldn't recognize them even if he knew them.

There were police officers trying to help them out of the water but there was so much chaos that it was hard to figure out where to start.

Suddenly the boat came to a stop and the occupants began climbing out, Mark waited until everyone else was out before he helped Jared with Jax.

As they waded through the water, they were slowly escorted into the building, there were hundreds of people filling the rooms and lining the corridors.

Jared wasn't entirely sure what he should do, of where he should go but he felt a hand on his arm and looked over to see Mark guiding him down the hall, after the others.

He sucked in a deep breath, relieved that he wasn't completely alone at this moment and when they broke free of the crowd, they picked a space at the end of the hall and he finally put Jax back on the ground.

There was so much noise, sirens, people crying and screaming that he couldn't hear himself think.

As he pressed his back to the wall and slid down to the floor, his wet clothes clinging to his skin and made him even colder.

Jax pressed his wet nose against his cheek and Jared let out a small chuckle.

"Yeah, we're going to be alright old boy." Jared whispered to him.

They must have sat there for hours when an Officer finally came in and told them that the National Guard was on their way and they would be transported to a FEMA Camp near Markum Ranch, Fort Worth.

He didn't have any other information to relay, like if it was actually an earthquake or of how widespread the damage was.

As more people filtered into the building, town hall workers came around with bottles of water and boxes of granola bars.

The best they could do right now for Jax was a tin of spam but the dog didn't seem to mind it all that much.

Another few hours passed before a call came out that the boats would be arriving shortly.

They would be taken to Waco where they would then have to be transferred to buses which would take them to Fort Worth.

Jared was already beyond exhausted and it was going to be several more hours before they even arrived at the camp.

As he thought about it, he wondered why they were being taken so far away, surely there were other places that were closer.

If they were being taken to Waco, what was wrong with a camp being set up there.

Several minutes later, he saw an Officer coming towards them and he got to his feet.

"Excuse me, Sir."

The Officer stopped and turned towards him. "What can I do for you?"

"Why are we being taken to Fort Worth, isn't there somewhere closer that we can go?"

The Officer sighed heavily and Jared was a little thrown off by it.

"What's going on?" Jared wanted to know.

"Look, kid, I don't know what to tell you," he said. "Information is damn sketchy but there's a lot of damage being reported from here up to Waco, that's about where the flooding is letting up a little. Fort Worth will be safer."

"What about Dallas?"

The Officer stared at his feet for a moment. "Don't know about flooding but most of the city is uh... it ain't really there anymore."

Jared's eyes grew wide in shock. "What do you, what does that mean?"

The Officer stared at him for a second before glancing away. "The earthquake hit the city really hard, they're trying to get survivors out but I don't know really know."

"And you think Forth Worth is safer?"

"The western side of the city is being reported as safe for the camp, that's all I know, kid."

****

It was almost midnight before the boats finally began arriving and it was a slow-moving process.

Jared, along with Mark and his family were on the fifth boat out, but even knowing that they were heading for relative safety, it was painfully slow.

It was so dark out and with the amount of debris everywhere, they needed to be careful not to hit anything.

It took a few hours but they finally arrived at the southern edge of the city. The flooding wasn't nearly as bad here and they were able to walk the rest of the way to the waiting buses.

It was almost five o'clock in the morning before they finally arrived at the camp. It was still fairly dark outside but there was just enough light that the could see some of the damage that had occurred.

He couldn't help but think that it wasn't exactly safer here, there may not have been flooding, but most of the buildings were beyond repair and a few of the roads were so badly damaged that they were unusable.

As the sky began to lighten, they couldn't help but notice the large, dark clouds of smoke rising up from the destroyed buildings.

He heard from a couple of passersby, that there was a large un-contained fire in Ridglea Hills.

That wasn't too far from their current location and he worried that it could spread to them in no time.

Especially considering the other piece of information that he had heard.

There weren't enough people to help stop it because the death tolls in Fort Worth and Dallas were apparently in the millions.

Of course, he took that news with a grain of salt. Information was still sketchy at best, so until there was some sort of official word...

"Jared."

He stopped and turned to face Mark. He was talking to a man who was holding a clipboard and a bag and he was writing something down.

"You have to give your name and address," Mark explained. "Then they will assign you an ID badge."

Jared nodded back and stepped up to the man, he quickly gave his name and address and after the man had written it down on the clipboard, he wrote it on a smaller card that went inside the ID. It was attached to a lanyard and he was instructed to wear it around his neck at all times.

After that, they were shown to a massive tent that must have had at least 100 cots all lined up in rows.

They were told to pick anywhere but to stick to that decision, space was going to be limited so they couldn't be mucking around.

Once they placed their belongings onto the cots, they decided to fan out and talk to some of the others, try and get some information.

Jared put Jax's leash on and he headed back out of the tent.

After talking to a few people, he discovered that there were another nine tents just like his and another two that had been set up for food and water distribution and a medical tent.

The longer he stayed outside the thicker the smoke became, the winds had changed and was pushing the cloud toward them.

When he decided that he had enough, he began walking back to the tent but stopped when he heard a group of people talking.

They were saying something about seeing a news report. There were many power outages and the phone lines had been overloaded for 24 hours now but someone had seen a report claiming that whatever was happening, it wasn't just Texas that had been hit.

It was everywhere.

He brought his hand to his mouth as he processed the implications of a country-wide disaster.

If it were true, he feared that he might be waiting for his family for a very long time.

****

They had been at the camp for two days now. The previous day, the first aid tent had instructed everyone to pick up a mask, the smoke from the Ridglea Hills fire had only intensified.

There were plenty of rumors abound and a lot of chatter about the safety of the camp.

A little after midday, another announcement was made, that a bus was going to be leaving later in the day, the plan was for it to try and get to Atlanta, Georgia.

Mark had pulled him aside not long after the announcement.

"I know that we could just stay here. The camp seems alright but we have family out there, North Carolina and we don't know how many buses they're going to send, we don't want to miss our chance."

Jared really didn't want to be here on his own but he understood why they needed to leave.

At two o'clock, almost 95 people were waiting to board the bus.

There was only enough room for 72 so not everyone who wanted to leave was able to.

Mark was 9th in line, so he and his family were given seats.

Jared was standing with them, waiting for them to leave. He could feel Mark's eyes on him.

"You could always come with us when the lines clear up a little, you could get in touch with your family." Mark told him.

Jared exhaled sharply. "I appreciate the offer, but I really should wait here for them, for Jensen."

Mark nodded back and patted him lightly on the shoulder but then a moment later, he pulled him into a hug. "Be careful, be safe."

Jared returned the hug and then watched as Mark and his family got onto the bus.

It pulled away a few minutes later he just stood there, Jax at his side.

Sucking in a deep breath, he turned back toward the tent and made his way inside.

When he reached his cot, his belongings still sitting on the floor next to it, he glanced around at the four empty cots left and he felt a little sadness creeping in.

He sat down on his cot and Jax rested his head on his lap and looked up at him.

"We'll be alright," Jared said. "We'll find mom and dad soon, you'll see. Even Jensen will be here, he wouldn't leave you behind buddy."

Jax barked and Jared couldn't help but laugh, it was a nice feeling if not a strange one to be laughing in a situation like this.

He must have fallen asleep at some point and he was woken by violent shaking.

He could hear the distressed cries of the other survivors as the tent swayed back and forth.

Somewhere outside, they could hear the sound of glass breaking, and what sounded like metal on metal.

He clutched Jax's collar, his grip so tight that his knuckles turned white and he waited for the shaking to stop.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he prayed for it to be over and after what felt like an eternity, the shaking ceased and he sucked in a deep breath.

Glancing around, he could see the fear in the eyes of those around him and when he looked toward the door, his eyes widened in surprise at the person standing there.

Forgetting for a moment that another earthquake had shaken him to the core, he got to his feet and half walked, half ran toward the door.

"Jensen!" He called out.

He could hear Jax barking and as he got closer, he saw the face of his childhood best friend.

"My god, Jensen, are you really here?"

He felt arms wrap around him as Jensen pulled him into an embrace.

For the longest time, the two of them just stood there, both beyond relieved to find the other alive.

"Jared," he said as he tightened his embrace. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you."

"Yeah," Jared replied. "I kinda know how you feel."

A moment later, Jensen took a step back and placed his hands on Jared's shoulders.

"I was so fucking worried that you wouldn't be here," Jensen told him. "When I heard how badly home had been damaged, I uh... I couldn't help but fear the worst."

Jared sucked in a deep breath as he stared at his best friend. He felt his eyes begin to sting and he used the heel of his hand to wipe at them.

"I'm just glad that I'm not alone."

Jensen pulled him into another hug but it didn't last as long because Jax was eager to get some attention.

Jensen knelt down and scratched the dog's ears. He was incredibly happy to see him and Jax showed it by licking his face.

Jensen chuckled loudly as he gave the dog another quick pat before he got to his feet.

Jared led the way toward the cot and Jensen dropped his bag onto one of the empty ones beside him.

"Have you managed to get in touch with anyone yet?" Jensen asked him. "I've tried for two days now but I still can't get through."

Jared shook his head. "No, it's the same for me, there is either no signal or the phone just rings and rings."

"We'll keep trying," Jensen told him. "We won't stop until we get through."

****

Four days later and neither of them had had any luck with getting in touch with their families.

They had previously hoped that things might begin to calm down but they had only gotten worse.

Most of the major cities were no longer broadcasting news reports, there were severe power outages across the country and when news did come through, it wasn't good.

The stories that Jared had heard, turned out to be true, it wasn't just Texas that had been affected but still, no one knew for sure what was going on.

There were still multiple earthquakes a day and the fire in Ridglea Hills was still out of control.

One piece of news had come through that morning, a major storm was heading straight for Fort Worth.

Jensen was a little concerned that if it turned into something other than a storm, say a tornado, he worried that the camp wasn't going to be safe.

There were about 1200 people at the camp now and there was no time to move anyone and even if there were, where would they go?

As the storm clouds rolled in, they were instructed to stay in the tents, stay away from the doors and to only move about it if it were an emergency.

Jensen wasn't entirely sure how the tents would hold up to the high winds, an official had tried to assure him that extra security measures had been put in place to stabilize the tents but he couldn't understand how that worked. There wasn't much that he could do otherwise and he didn't want to freak Jared out.

Currently, they were sitting on the ground in between their cots, Jax was curled up at their feet with his head resting in Jared's lap.

The rain came in a few minutes later, it pelted the roof of the tent and became so loud that Jensen almost had to cover his ears.

Several minutes passed before the winds picked up. The flimsy fabric of the tent shifted significantly and Jensen worried for a moment that it would simply lift up and fly away.

He drew a deep breath to try to calm his nerves, not that a single thought or action could change how he currently felt.

He glanced up at Jared who was softly patting Jax on the head, a small thing to keep his mind occupied.

A freezing wind-swept through the tent and Jensen shivered as it whipped past him.

They had no idea how long this was going to last, it could be minutes, it could be an hour.

He heard a few people cry out in distress as a large gust of wind rocked the tent and he felt Jared shift, moving the cot that they were leaning against.

"You doing okay?" He asked.

Jared looked up at him and then nodded. "I guess, as much as I can be."

"I think that we should leave." Jensen announced.

Jared narrowed his eyes at him.

"Obviously not right now," he added. "But I think that once the storm has passed, we need to leave."

Jared inhaled sharply as he continued to pat Jax.

"If the conditions are really bad out there, it could take a while to reach Albuquerque."

Jared's thoughts turned to his family. He had spent a lot of time over the past week worrying about them.

His parents and Jensen's parents were with their younger sisters in Albuquerque for a gymnastics meet.

His brother Jeff was in Tucson where he worked and Jensen's older brother Josh was in Sacramento.

The plan was to make their way to Albuquerque, track their families down and then hope that their brothers were either with them already, or not too far away.

Another massive gust of wind-swept through and the tent rocked back and forth causing the doors to fly open.

The people who were closest to the door were showered in rain and several people rushed toward the doors, struggling to get them closed.

They fought hard against the wind but they finally succeeded and pulled the doors back into place.

He brought his hands to his face as the wind and rain grew stronger and stronger.

It was so deafening, so unnerving that he squeezed his eyes shut and brought his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around himself.

He couldn't see what was happening but he could hear it all. People were screaming and crying out.

The wind was violently shaking the tent and the ground underneath him was vibrating.

He was afraid, he wanted to be stronger than that but he was terrified that this time, he wouldn't be so lucky.

With his breath catching in his throat, he reached out and grabbed at Jared, his fingers digging into his arm and he could feel Jared inching a little bit closer.

The next burst of wind hit the tent with such force that it stole the air from his lungs and he was knocked sideways.

He wanted to see, to know what was happening around him but he couldn't bring himself to do it, to know for sure that this could be the end.

The ground rolled violently and made him feel queasy, but he didn't really remember much after the rain began to hit, soaking him to the bone.

****

"Jare, can you hear me. Jared?"

Opening his eyes, he glanced up and he let out a deep sigh of relief.

"Jensen," he said. "What's going on, what happened?"

A hint of sadness filled Jensen's eyes. "The storm."

Jared gave his head a small shake. "What, what about it?"

Jensen glanced around at the destruction that surrounded them. The place was an absolute mess.

The tent was tilted at an awkward angle, cots and bags had been pushed around like they were made of tissue and people were screaming and crying.

Jensen grabbed Jared by the shoulders and helped him to sit up.

Curled up beside him was Jax, who was busily cleaning his rain-soaked fur.

Jared lifted his hands to his face and pushed the wet hair from his eyes and as he sucked in a deep breath, an ear-piercing scream filled the air.

They both looked over to where a group of people was gathered, they couldn't see exactly what was going on but they knew it wasn't good.

Jensen would be beyond surprised if there wasn't a high death toll from this storm.

They were lucky that all they had suffered was some dirty, wet clothes and a potential cold.

For a few minutes he just sat there, running his hands through his hair as he wondered how the other survivors, the other tents had fared.

Finally, he got to his feet and he scrunched up his nose when his still very wet shirt clung to his back and sent a shiver down his spine.

"Where are you going?" Jared questioned him as he got to his feet.

"We need to get out of here," he replied. "We're no safer here than we were before."

Jared nodded back at him and they had to search around the cots to find their bags.

Jared pulled out Jax's leash and attached it before they wound their way through the mess and stepped through the door.

Jensen squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as he saw the mess that the storm had left in its wake.

They could see two of the other tents were in far worse shape than theirs had been and where he thought another tent had sat just a couple of hours ago, there was now a very large tree that had toppled over, bringing the power lines down with it.

They watched as people were panicking about the downed lines, they were darting about, desperately trying to control the situation and as Jensen glanced around, he narrowed his eyes as a thought occurred to him.

The lines may have been down but they weren't sparking. He couldn't see an actual threat.

"Jared, you seeing this?"

Jared stepped up beside him. "Seeing what?"

"The lights," Jensen replied. "Or the lack of them."

Jared spun in a circle and realized that Jensen was correct, there were no lights, not anywhere.

"I'm not surprised that the storm knocked out the power."

Jensen inhaled sharply.

It made absolute sense that a major storm like that to knock out the power, but there was something nagging at him but he couldn't quite place it.

"Jensen," Jared said. "Do you really want to leave right now? It's too dark and we have no idea what damage the storm has done out there. Where would we go?"

"I think that we should find a car and head to Weatherford."

Jared cocked an eyebrow at him. "Weatherford, why there?"

"A guy I went to school with lives there," Jensen explained. "With any luck, the town is still standing and we could have a place to stay."

Jared drew in a deep breath before nodding back. "Okay, I guess. But where are we going to get a car from?"

Jensen gave his shoulders a shrug. "I don't know. Does it matter?"

"You want to steal a car?" Jared replied. "Seriously?"

"Look around you Jared, I don't think that many people are going to be too concerned if we take a car," Jensen told him. "It's not that big of a deal."

Jared wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea but Jensen had a point, there was so much going on that a 'misplaced' car wouldn't really concern anyone.

"Okay," he said. "Yeah, we should do this now then."

Jensen nodded back at him. "I noticed a Wal-Mart on the way in, there will be a ton of cars just sitting there. I reckon it will take 10 or 15 minutes to walk over there."

Jared sucked in a deep breath and motioned for Jensen to lead the way.

It took a lot longer than Jensen had anticipated to make it to the parking lot. There was a lot of flooding and debris to maneuver around.

The parking lot was at the back of the building and Jensen had been correct, there were a lot of cars and he picked the closest one and tested the handle.

It was locked but he didn't want to waste too much time searching through the rows of cars.

"Jensen," Jared called out. "I got one."

Jensen squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled sharply. He made his way over to Jared as he was climbing into the passenger seat, Jax was sitting in the back, happy as anything.

Jensen put his pack into the trunk and climbed in behind the wheel.

"Who the hell leaves their keys in the car?" He said with a shake of his head.

Jared shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, but whoever they are, has helped us a lot."

Jensen stuck the key into the ignition and gave it a turn.

Absolutely nothing happened.

There was no ticking of the engine, no low rumble of an attempt to start up.

There was just nothing.

"What the fuck?" Jensen cried out.

He glanced over at Jared who offered no opinion.

"We'll have to check another one," Jensen said as he pushed open the door. "Maybe you should wait here, I'll just be a few minutes."

Jared turned in the seat and scratched Jax's ears. The dog had no idea what was going on. He was aware and a little afraid of the weather but when it passed, he was back to his usual happy self, excited to be on this adventure with them.

Sucking in a deep breath, he glanced out of the window and saw Jensen open a car door a few rows ahead of him.

A few minutes later, he climbed out of the car and slammed the door, causing Jared to cringe.

He made his way back to the car and climbed in.

"What's wrong?" Jared asked him.

"I checked three other cars," Jensen replied. "And not one of them worked."

Jared narrowed his eyes at him as he pondered what that meant.

"I don't know," Jensen said. "Something just doesn't seem right here."

"What do you mean?"

"It was right after we walked out of the tent," Jensen explained. "Those people who were trying to deal with the power lines."

Jared nodded back at him. "Yeah, I saw them, but the power was out, so..."

"So," Jensen said. "I don't think it's as simple as the power is out. When I said that not one of those cars would start, I mean they wouldn't start as in they're completely dead, like they've been fried."

Jared swallowed around the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat and he reached for his pack and pulled out his old brick of a phone.

It had been a few days since he had last charged it so he hoped that it would have enough juice to turn on.

He frantically pressed at the buttons but nothing was happening. He glanced over at Jensen. "What the fuck is going on?"

Jensen gave his head a shake. "I don't know."

For several minutes they just sat there, contemplating their next moves.

"Okay," Jensen said. "There is a subdivision across the street, we should check a few of them out, I need to know for sure."

Jared didn't say anything as he got out of the car, retrieved his pack and let Jax out.

"I don't get it," Jared said. "What do you think is going on?"

Jensen adjusted the strap of his pack as they trekked across the muddy, flooded field toward the subdivision.

"I'm not sure," Jensen replied. "But what with the power going out and now four completely different makes and models of cars won't start."

"Yeah, so what does that mean?"

Jensen glanced over at him and sucked in a deep breath.

"It means it's not just a storm causing a power outage," he told him. "Something else happened that's affected cars, phones and who knows what else. That's why I want to check out these houses."

They finally cleared the field and made their way across the street.

Obviously, there were no lights on and given the storm, any residents that were still here would have taken shelter.

They approached the first house and Jensen tested the door handle, it was locked and when he turned around, he saw Jared standing there, a key in his hand.

"Where the hell did you get that?"

Jared gave his shoulders a shrug and then pointed to a small dog statue tucked in the garden.

"Jesus." Jensen muttered under his breath as Jared handed him the key.

They made their way inside and were quick to call out.

After several minutes of checking rooms and calling out for the owners and receiving no response, they regrouped in the living room.

"Okay," Jared said. "So, what exactly is the plan here?"

"We should check for any kids toys, anything that has batteries in it."

"Right."

They split up again and after ten minutes of searching, they came back with an armload of flashlight's, remote-controlled toys and other electronics.

They dumped them onto the dining room table and started testing each one.

"I knew it." Jensen said.

"Again, knew what exactly?" Jared asked with a sigh.

"None of these electronics are working. The wires are fried." Jensen told him.

Jared picked up another flashlight and tried to turn it on. "Damn it, Jensen, can you get to the point."

"The cars, our phones, these electronics, the power being out," Jensen said. "It's an EMP, that's the only explanation I can think of."

Jared scoffed back at him. "What the hell are you talking about, an EMP? How would that even happen?"

Jensen dropped the remote-controlled car onto the table. "Yeah, how else do you explain it? As for how I honestly have no idea."

"Fuck." Jared cried out. "If that's true, you know what it means right."

Jensen nodded back at him. "Yeah, I know what it means. It also means that wherever we're going, we won't be driving."


	2. I Will Be Your Sword and Shield

The sun had just broken the horizon when Jensen finally stopped walking and turned toward Jared.

"I have no idea for sure, but I think we've been walking for about six hours," Jensen said. "I can't take another fucking step."

Jared tilted his head to the sky and let out a deep sigh. "Thank god, because my feet are killing me."

In the six hours since leaving the camp, they had made it as far as Willowpark.

The roads were a complete mess, there was so much debris and destruction from the storm that making it even that far had been a miracle.

Just off the highway, they found an elementary school.

As they got closer, they saw that the buildings were still in fairly good condition and with no one else around, they figured it would be a good place to stay for a couple of days.

They approached what turned out to be the admin building, the doors were locked and it took both of them kicking it in to break the lock.

Once they got inside, they found that while it was dirty and smelled musty, it was in good condition.

"We need to stock up on water," Jensen said. "I'm really hoping that the cafeteria has something."

After checking out the building, they made their way down the corridor and easily found the cafeteria, most of the tables and chairs had been pushed to one side but there wasn't a lot of damage, no reason they could think of as to why someone would have done that.

They located the kitchen and were beyond thrilled to find a few boxes of granola bars, several loose jello cups and about a dozen bags of pretzels and Doritos.

They didn't find any water but Jared almost screamed out loud when he found a vending machine that clearly still had cans of soda inside.

Once they figured out how to pry the door open, they produced two dozen cans of soda. It added a lot of weight to their packs but they didn't care, it was totally worth it.

On the other side of the building, they found some offices, the teacher's lounge, and the nurses office.

Jensen began going through the drawers and cupboards and found a ton of first aid supplies and basic medications.

"This will be a good place to stay for a night or two. It has beds, is small and easily defendable."

"I'm not going to argue with you."

Jensen walked across the room and pulled open one of the doors.

"And it has a bathroom.'

"Yeah," Jared said with a nod. "It will be good to get some proper sleep. Without having to worry about being rained on, or swept up in a tornado."

Jensen narrowed his eyes.

Jared gave a small laugh and put his pack down onto the bed and pulled two cans of coke out.

He held one out to Jensen who took it instantly and cracked it open.

For a while they just sat there while they had something to eat and drink to give themselves a rest.

Jared had also found a small plastic bowl and filled it with water for Jax. The dog downed the liquid and then curled up under the desk.

"I had a thought," Jared said. "We should see if we could find a couple of bikes, maybe even something like a trailer that we can load up with supplies."

Jensen rolled onto his side and stared back at him. "Bikes?"

"Yeah," Jared replied. "It would be better than walking, we could cover a hell of a lot more distance. Look how long it took us just to walk to Willowpark."

"Yeah, I get your point."

****

A few hours later, they decided to walk around a little. Jared had found a set of keys in the filing cabinet that locked the Nurse's Office.

They had decided to leave Jax there, he was still asleep and Jared didn't want to disturb him.

The building had a slightly eerie feeling to it, it hadn't been very long since the place would have been filled with people.

Noises, laughter and talking filling the halls.

Now it was completely empty.

As they walked past the classrooms, they reached the end of the building, a set of double doors opened to the quad and through the glass windows, they could see the gymnasium.

"Just a wild guess but maybe the parking lots are on the other side of the gym."

Jensen tested the handle and found that it opened easily.

They stepped out into the blazing hot sun and quickly walked around to the other side of the building.

They could see the parking lot, there were several cars parked there and after walking a little further, they saw the bus drop off and pick up and not too far down from that, was a row of bike stands.

It took several minutes to find bikes that were suitable for their given heights.

Once they were happy with their choice, they took the bikes back to the Nurse's Office.

Leaning the bikes against the wall just outside the room, Jared unlocked the door and Jax happily greeted them.

"What's your idea for some sort of trailer?" Jensen asked him.

"Not sure yet but surely this town has a camping store or a hardware store."

"Yeah maybe," Jensen said. "But I'm still damn exhausted, maybe we can check it out later."

Jared nodded back at him as they settled back onto the bed.

After a few more hours of sleep, they could sort out a trailer and load up supplies.

****

When Jared opened his eyes, he was stunned to find that the room was completely dark.

He calmed down a little when he heard Jax moving around a little.

Sitting up, he dropped his feet to the floor and leaned over and patted Jensen on the arm.

"Wake up, Jen."

Jensen mumbled something but didn't move, didn't wake up.

"Jensen!"

"What?"

"I think we overslept," Jared told him. "It's dark out."

Jensen sat bolt upright and it looked so ridiculous that Jared couldn't help but laugh.

Jensen ran his hand through this hair as he cursed under his breath.

They had very definitely overslept but he wasn't sure what they could do now that the sun had set. It was difficult enough as it was to travel during the day.

"What do you want to do?" Jared asked. "Do we wait until the morning or..."

"I don't know. I'm not sure about you but I don't think that I can just sit here for the next... we can't do much no goddamn power."

"Yeah, I kind of don't want to just sit here either," Jared replied. "So maybe we could go out there and find some sort of bike trailer."

Jensen nodded back at him. "Yeah, sounds good."

He got to his feet and grabbed his jacket from the desk.

****

The only light they were granted was from the full moon.

At least the storm had passed and the sky was clear. It felt like there was a possibility of rain at some point but so far they were in the clear.

After finding the main street, they came across a hardware store. The windows had been blown out but they could see stock still sitting on the shelves.

"What did you have in mind?" Jensen asked as they stepped through the door.

Jared gave his shoulders a shrug. "Something along the lines of a wagon."

"A wagon?" Jensen replied with a laugh. "Awesome."

Jared ignored that comment and began searching the shelves.

After a few minutes of searching, Jared found something that could work. It was basically a metal tray on wheels and sitting on top of the tray was what looked like 3 large-sized metal boxes.

"Jensen, come and check this out."

Jensen appeared at the end of the shelves.

"It looks pretty sturdy," Jared told him. "But there is only one."

"Better than nothing."

"Yeah," Jared replied. "It is. But I want something for Jax as well. He's too old to be keeping up with us on bikes."

"Fair point," Jensen replied. "I'm sure that we can find something."

"We might be able to build something," Jared said. "But we won't have power tools so I don't know how strong it would be."

They kept looking but all they could find were some plastic crates and a couple of wheelbarrows.

"Wait," Jensen called out. "I remember seeing a sign back there, on the other side of the highway, an animal hospital."

Jared popped up from behind one of the shelves. "Let's go."

They had to drag the trailer along behind them but once they got onto the highway, it was a little easier and they eventually found the animal hospital.

They found several cat carriers and cages for smaller animals but nothing that would accommodate a dog.

In a back storage room, Jensen found some more cages and then cried out in excitement when he found a dog trailer. It was a little small, it would be barely big enough to hold Jax but it was on wheels and it would be better than the poor old boy running along beside them.

Jared was more excited about it than he had been, even if it was going to be a tight fit, what concerned him more was how they were going to attach the trailers.

****

It took almost a whole day to figure out how to attach the trailer to the bikes so that they would be strong enough. If they encountered rough terrain, they didn't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with no way of fixing it.

They packed as much food, first aid supplies, and water into them as they could before they got onto the highway to head north toward Lubbock.

It took them half a day to reach Haskell. They had stopped for five minutes every hour so that they could cover as much distance as possible.

But what they found, was gut-wrenching.

The only buildings that were left standing were an old church and a radio station on the western edge of town.

It was getting late so they decided to stop for a few hours of sleep, the church was an old tin structure that seemed surprisingly sturdy, it was a safe place to get some rest.

It even had a small kitchenette and Jensen was surprised to find that it still had running water, he wasn't sure that it was safe to drink but at least they would be able to clean themselves up a little.

After searching through the building, Jared found pillows and blankets as well as a few boxes of clothes. The jackets were what interested him the most.

Jensen came out from the kitchen carrying a couple of lanterns and plopped them down in front of Jared.

When he glanced up at him he had a big cheesy grin on his face.

"This place is pretty handy," he said. "There's a bunch of candles in there too. We should take some when we leave."

Jared nodded back at him. "Definitely. Jensen, how far do you think it is to Lubbock?"

"A day maybe depends on what the roads are like I guess."

As they settled in to get some sleep, Jared couldn't help but wonder about the town and where all the people might have gone.

Surely, they wouldn't have been evacuated to the Fort Worth Camp but why would they be taken anywhere else? They were closer to Fort Worth than he had been... none of it made any sense to him.

Jensen could sense Jared's uneasiness and pulled himself into a sitting position.

"Everything okay?" He asked.

Jared didn't respond right away which just concerned him even more.

"I'm just stressed out," he finally said. "I know that we've only been through a few towns so far, but look at what we've seen. I just can't help but worry that Lubbock, Albuquerque, they're all going to be the same."

Jensen sighed heavily as he ran his hand through his hair. "I'm trying not to think about that. I have to believe that my family is out there somewhere, that Misha is out there and that they're okay."

"I can't remember if I asked you before," Jared said. "But did you get to talk to Misha before the EMP?"

Jensen glanced over at him, a sadness in his eyes that Jared instantly felt guilty for.

"No," he replied. "There was just a message saying that he would be back from Seattle... the day the EMP hit."

"Shit," Jared muttered. "You don't think that..."

Jensen vigorously shook his head. "I'm trying not to think about that at all."

"Well," Jared replied. "Given that all hell broke loose a week before that, maybe there were no flights leaving from anywhere."

"Yeah, maybe."

Jensen lay back down and stared up at the ceiling. As much as he tried to, he just couldn't get to sleep.

****

As they approached the eastern edge of Lubbock, they saw the destruction that had befallen the city.

It didn't just look like a storm or an earthquake had hit, it looked like a war zone.

"What the hell happened here?" Jared wondered. "This place is..."

"Fucked up," Jensen said, finishing Jared's thought. "Who would have thought that we would end up being the lucky ones."

Jared stopped suddenly, the brakes on his bike squealing.

"What the hell?" Jensen cried out.

Jared pointed toward a car sitting in a driveway just across from them.

They could both clearly see two people sitting in the car and the longer they stood there and watched, the more obvious it became that the occupants were dead.

Jared put the stand down on his bike and began walking over to the car.

"What are you doing?" Jensen questioned him. "There's nothing that we can do for those people."

"I know," Jared answered. "But I have to know. I need to see how they died."

Jensen cocked an eyebrow at him as he glanced back toward the trailer and saw Jax sitting there, an almost smile on his face.

Jared was hesitant about opening the door but he was the one who wanted to do this, so he just needed to get it over with.

He pulled the door open and was incredibly surprised when water came rushing out and he threw himself backwards.

"What the fuck was that?" Jensen asked.

Jared backed away from the car and made his way over to Jensen. As he glanced around, he couldn't really tell if a flood had come through Lubbock.

"Does it look like the city was hit by a flood?" Jared asked.

Jensen glanced around and then shrugged his shoulders. "I guess it's possible, I mean there is so much damage it's a little hard to tell exactly what happened here."

"Yeah well," Jared replied. "I'm fairly certain that the people in that car, drowned."

Jensen lifted his hand to his face and scratched his chin. "I don't know what the hell went on here, but I don't really feel comfortable just hanging out in the open like this."

Jared nodded back at him and they continued to head toward the center of the city.

If it were at all possible, the destruction seemed even worse the closer they got. Buildings had crumbled, cars lined the streets, there was debris everywhere and parts of the road and sidewalk were cracked like something had tried to push its way through.

They kept going, they needed to find somewhere that was at least partially livable, for a few days at least.

They eventually approached a large shopping center, it appeared to be separated into several different buildings on both sides of the street and Jensen randomly choose one building for them to check out.

The parking lot seemed to be littered with shell casings which sent a shiver down Jensen's spine.

"I don't want to be out here too long."

They stopped in front of the main doors.

The glass had been blown out so they literally rode their bikes right into the building.

They parked up, leaving the bikes tucked behind a wall that lead to the bathrooms and after Jared got Jax down from the trailer, they made their way out into the main area of the mall.

Large chunks of concrete were scattered amongst the broken glass, racks and shelves had been knocked over and laying in places they wouldn't normally be.

"I want to look out for some clothing stores." Jensen told him.

There was a large fountain in the middle of the walkway and Jared was a little confused when Jax began barking furiously.

Then they both heard it, the sound of a gun being cocked and they froze in their tracks.

Jared tried to get the dog to stop but he was determined to keep the gun owner away from them.

"Fuck," Jensen uttered. "If you're going to shoot, can you please just get it over with."

"Jensen?"

The gun owner stepped out from behind the fountain and when Jensen saw who it was, he just about passed out from shock.

"No way," he said. "It can't be."

The guy stepped closer to them as he lowered his weapon and Jensen waited a moment before he threw himself forward and wrapped his arms around him.

"Misha, my god. How the hell are you here right now?"

Misha returned the embrace and after a moment, he took a step back and lifted his hand to Jensen's face and lightly patted him on the cheek.

"That's a long story, which we can talk about later."

Misha hugged him again and then slipped his hand to the back of Jensen's neck and kissed him.

He only stepped away when Jax started barking again.

Misha leaned down and scratched the dog's ears. "I'm happy to see you too buddy."

After giving Jax some attention, Misha turned to Jared and gave him a quick hug.

"I can't even..." Misha said. "The fact that you're here right now, I can't even process it."

"You and me both," Jensen replied. "I'm fairly certain that at some point, I'm going to wake up, lying in the middle of the road with the bike on top of me."

Misha cocked an eyebrow at him. "Come again?"

Jensen gave his head a shake. "We found a couple of mountain bikes and trailers to haul our stuff."

"Nice," Misha said with a chuckle. "As amusing as it is in my head, you on a bike is funny, but stretch here, that's something I'd like to see."

"Yeah, great," Jared replied. "Can we possibly worry about the impending apocalypse instead of how much taller I am than you."

"Sure," Misha replied. "We've set up a camp on the second level."

Jensen stopped walking and grabbed his arm. "Wait, who is we?"

Misha turned toward him smiled softly. "Myself, Rachel and Chris."

Jensen was once again left stunned. Not only had he randomly found the only person he had ever been in love with, but two of his closest friends were also there.

"They're okay?" He asked.

Misha nodded back at him. "They are, a little bruised, exhausted but they're okay. We all are."

They made their way up the escalator and when they approached the food court, Jensen and Jared saw three tents set up with a picnic table sitting in the center.

When they sat down at the table, Jensen noticed a large black stain on the floor.

"What is that?"

"Our heat and light source," Misha told him. "We set up barrel fires on both floors."

"Right, of course."

"How have you guys been doing food wise?" Misha asked.

"Actually not too bad," Jensen replied. "We've been lucky and found some good stuff."

"Glad to hear," Misha said. "And it will stay that way. There is more than enough here."

"How did you end up here, of all places?"

"Didn't even make it to Seattle," Misha replied. "The day that everything went to hell, we were forced to make an emergency landing."

"Shit, good thing Lubbock has an airport then."

"Well, I guess," Misha said. "But we were more airport adjacent."

"What does that mean?" Jensen wanted to know.

"We had to land in a field, the runways weren't clear, but it was a good landing, no one was hurt."

Jensen glanced around, wondering why it was just the three of them who were here.

"What happened to everyone else?"

"Well, some people stayed for a few days, most of them wanted to go home, find their families."

"So," Jensen said. "You were already here when the EMP hit then."

"You agree that it was, in fact, an EMP?"

Jensen nodded back at him. "Yeah, it took trying to start several cars, testing out flashlights, etc to confirm it."

"One minute we were bathed in the beautiful fluorescent light and the next it was pitch black," Misha explained. "That's when we started using the barrels."

"Can I backtrack for a second," Jared asked. "Do you know what happened here? Why it looks like a war zone?"

Misha nodded slightly. "From what we saw for ourselves and what we heard, it sounds like the city was hit really badly by the flooding. Supposedly FEMA came through when the water cleared but people were... it was chaos."

"Understandable," Jensen added. "But that doesn't really explain the war zone aspect, the number of shell casings we saw."

"Over the past few weeks, we've heard a few gunshots here and there but whatever that was, I honestly couldn't say."

"So you've just stuck to the mall then?"

Misha nodded back. "Yeah, we go out occasionally to collect firewood from around the lake but we try to stay as close to here as possible."

"And what about what's going on out there, did you hear any reports?"

Misha exhaled sharply. "We've heard all sorts of theories but I wouldn't even know where to begin."

Their conversation came to an abrupt end when the building began to shake violently.

While it freaked Jensen and Jared out, Misha didn't seem to be too distressed by it and Jensen didn't know if he should be annoyed by the lack of caring or if it was simply a case of he knew something that they didn't.

"Yeah," Misha said. "That happens a few times a day. It feels quite violent but so far nothing has really come of it, the building is still standing."

Jensen shook his head in disbelief. "And you're okay with that, what happens when the building doesn't stay standing."

"We have packs with supplies down by the front doors in case we need to leave in a hurry." Misha told them.

Jared sighed heavily and reached into his pack for a bottle of water.

"You manage to get hold of your families before the EMP?" Misha asked.

Jensen gave his head a shake and stared sadly at him. "No, but I have renewed hope that we'll find them. We found each other again."

Misha leaned across the table and placed his hand over Jensen's. "Damn right we did."

The conversation again came to a halt when they heard footsteps on the tile floor and when Jensen glanced up, he saw Rachel and Chris approaching.

"Fuck me," Chris called out. "Should have known your stubborn ass would magically appear."

Jensen got to his feet and embraced his friend. "It's good to see you, Chris."

After a round of relieved hugs, they sat down at the table while Misha went to get some food.

He came back a few minutes later, his arms were laden with packages of cookies, candy bars, and popcorn.

"Popcorn." Jensen said as he ripped open one of the bags."

"Chilli and Lime flavor too," Misha added. "If you can fucking imagine that."

Another shake rocked the building, sending Jared's nerves through the roof and he tried to remain calm until the shaking stopped.

"Did Misha tell you that we recommend that you sleep in your clothes, shoes on," Chris said. "It took a few days for us to get used to it, the number of times we were woken up in the middle of the night, half-dressed and not at all prepared to leave."

"Speaking of clothes," Misha said. "I should take you down to the gym, they have bathrooms and the water is still running."

"Showers?" Jensen asked, not wanting to get his hopes up.

Misha nodded back. "Yeah, I can't guarantee that it's hot but these days, a shower is a shower."

"Not gonna argue with you on that," Jensen replied. "Point the way."

After Misha had taken them to a clothing store on the first level, he showed them where the gym was.

It was a smallish space but each bathroom had two showers and two toilets and the water was in fact still running.

The water was lukewarm at best but he could deal with that, the simple act of showering was bliss.

Jensen stayed under the water longer than he probably should have while Jared had already showered and changed into his new clothes.

When Jared made his way out into the main area, Misha was sitting on one of the bench press seats, waiting for them.

"Everything alright?"

Jared nodded back at him as he shoved his old clothes into a tattered plastic bag.

"You're not keeping those, are you?"

Jared glanced down at the bag and then looked back up at him. "Uh, no. I was gonna toss them."

"Okay good."

"Well, I'm going to head back up." Jared said.

Misha nodded back at him. "Yeah, I'll wait for Jensen."

Jared headed back up to the second floor and a few minutes after that, Jensen appeared in the doorway.

He was wearing the new clothes, his old ones were bundled up in his arms.

His hair was still damp and drops of water fell onto the collar of his shirt.

Misha exhaled sharply as he got to his feet and stepped up to him. He reached out and pressed his palm to Jensen's cheek.

He still couldn't believe that he had just appeared like that.

Lubbock was a big city and there were a lot of places that Jensen and Jared could have gone into so the fact that they had shown up at that particular mall...

He was going to make damn sure that they weren't separated ever again.

After dumping his clothes into a trash bin outside of the gym, they headed upstairs.

****

A little before sunset, Misha and Jensen dragged a couple of folding chairs up to the roof, while earlier it had looked like a storm might be rolling in, it had cleared up and it was going to make for a beautiful sunset.

If only the circumstances were different, it felt almost wrong to be admiring a sunset.

Jensen had found a case of beer and he opened the box, handing one to Misha.

For the longest time, they just sat there drinking their beer, they didn't feel the need to say a whole lot, it was just nice being there together.

As the sun slowly disappeared, Jared appeared in the doorway.

"Chris wanted me to say that we might need more firewood."

Misha nodded back at him and got to his feet. "Yeah, we probably do. You going down there?"

"I thought I would, you two wanna come?"

Jensen finishes off his beer and placed the empty bottle back into the box before joining them.

They made their way down to ground level and Misha led the way to the park where they had been collecting their firewood.

With the sun setting, the temperature began to drop and being near the lake just made it worse.

A harsh wind-swept across the water and Jensen had to zip up his jacket.

They wanted to move as quickly as possible but when the sun finally disappears and darkness surrounded them, they froze on the spot when they heard what sounded like gunfire.

"What the hell is that?" Jared asked as he moved closer to Jensen.

Misha adjusted the stack of firewood in his arms. "I have no idea, we've heard all sorts of noises since we got here, if it is gunfire, it's never made its way to the mall."

The popping sound continued for a few minutes and Jensen stared at Jared when he dropped the wood onto the ground and pointed at the sky.

"What the fuck is that?"

They all turned in the direction that Jared had pointed in and they saw a strange red light in the distance.

It was soon followed by a series of green and blue lights and as they continued to watch, the ground began to roll under their feet.

They quickly gathered up the dropped firewood before making their way back to the mall.

The sound of breaking glass caught their attention as they approached the doors and they saw the building across the parking lot shake violently the still remaining windows shattering.

And then almost as suddenly as it started, it stopped.

It became so eerily silent that Jensen felt a chill run down his spine and he tried desperately to shake it off.

Fortunately, the rest of the night remained earthquake free but their nerves were so shot that sleep wasn't going to come easy to any of them.


	3. Shadow Creeping Over Me

Two weeks had passed since they had arrived at the mall, it had been almost five weeks since the world had come crashing down around them.

They hadn't planned on staying in one place for this long, Jensen, of course, wanted to find his family and he knew that Jared was desperate to find him but during their time at the mall, several storms had rolled through, making it difficult to travel.

It was late in the afternoon and he had been simply lounging around on the roof when he had been forced to go back inside.

The rain seemingly came out of nowhere and it came down hard.

Hail, the size of marbles pelted the roof and windows and created a thunderous echo inside the mall.

Chris and Rachel were wandering around the mall somewhere, Misha was asleep and Jared was sitting at the table with a book.

Jensen grabbed a couple of bottles of water and sat down across from him.

"How are you doing?"

Jared glanced up from his book and then gave his shoulders a shrug. "Okay, I guess. Eager to finally leave here."

"I know you are," Jensen replied as he held a bottle of water out to him. "It's not going to be forever, we will make it to Albuquerque, I promise you that."

Jared sighed heavily. "I know we will but it's just so damn frustrating, they could be out there waiting for us and we can't do anything, not with all this shitty fucking weather."

"We'll figure out it Jared," he told him. "You okay though, sitting here with your book, cos I thought I might lie down for a bit."

Jared nodded back at him. "Yeah, I'm okay but don't worry, if anything happens, you'll be the first to know."

Jensen took his bottle of water with him and walked over to the tent. He lifted back the flap and smiled to himself when he saw the way that Misha was sleeping.

He was lying on his stomach, on an angle, the sleeping bag had moved to one side and the pillow to the other.

He looked ridiculous and the normalness of it made Jensen smile even harder.

Stepping into the tent, he dropped the flap and had to carefully step over Misha.

He rearranged the pillows and blankets as best he could.

He didn't fully wake up, but Misha moved to a more comfortable position and Jensen laid down beside him.

He tucked one arm under his head and drawing in a deep breath, he closed his eyes. He must have been more tired than he realized because not long after, he was fast asleep.

****

It was roughly mid-afternoon, three weeks after arriving in Lubbock, when Jared was down by the lake with Jax.

It had been almost 24 hours since the last rainfall and he was ever hopeful that in the coming days, they would finally make plans to leave the mall and make their way toward Albuquerque.

He had been a little iffy at first to take his beloved dog down to the park. The last time they had spent a normal day playing, all hell had broken loose.

Jared had been tossing a stick to Jax who was having great fun in leaving that particular stick and bringing back a different one.

It wasn't until he was watching Jax dig around in the long grass for a new stick that it occurred to him that he hadn't seen any other animals.

In particular, he hadn't seen any birds, not since that day he had run across the field toward his house.

He knew the reasons for the lack of birds was going to be another terrible thing to add to a growing list but he tried not to think about and instead focus his attention on Jax.

But his attention was instead drawn to the sound of metal hitting metal.

When he glanced back up to the roof of the mall, he could see people standing there, not specifically who it was but he could make out a couple of figures.

"Jax, come on, let's go."

They quickly made their way back to the mall and once inside the building, he could still hear the metal on metal noise.

When he got to the roof, he saw Jensen and Misha standing near the edge, Misha was holding a metal pipe in his hand and he was banging it against the old air conditioning unit.

"What's going on?" Jared asked as he approached them. "When I heard that... it freaked me out."

"Yeah," Misha replied. "Sorry about that, but we knew that when you heard it, you would come back."

"Okay, great," he said. "So, why are you doing that exactly?"

Jensen pointed to a spot in the distance. They were too far away to make out faces but they could see two people down on the street, roughly three blocks away.

They couldn't be entirely sure from that distance, but it was more than likely that the two individuals were injured. They moved slowly and awkwardly, each stepped seemed like a struggle.

"You want them to come here?" Jared asked.

Jensen turned to face him. "There are only two of them, they don't look so great and we have the means to defend ourselves if we have to."

"If we can help them," Misha added. "Then we should."

At the rate they were moving, it took about 20 minutes before they got close enough for them to make out any features.

A man and a woman and when they rounded the corner of the building, they could finally see the three of them standing up on the roof.

The woman was pointing at them.

"You two should go down there," Misha said. "I'll stay here until they find the building."

Jensen nodded back at him and lead the way down to ground level.

On the way down, they had grabbed two of the guns, concealed for now to prevent any issues before they'd even had a chance to talk to these strangers.

Jensen and Jared cautiously made their way down the street.

A few minutes later, the two newcomers came into view and they had been right about them, they were clearly injured.

Jensen took a few steps towards them and gave his head a shake as he looked at the face of the man before him.

"Professor Morgan?"

The man stumbled a little and the woman standing next to him, reached out with her good arm and helped steady him.

"Jensen Ackles?" he replied. "A familiar face, finally."

Jensen moved toward him and slung his arm around him to help him walk.

"How the hell did you end up in Lubbock?"

"Got stuck at Denver International and made it as far as Trinidad before the fucking EMP killed the car," Jeff explained. "We were in Amarillo before here."

"What's it like there?" Jared asked.

"It's a fucking hole."

Jared narrowed his eyes at him. "I'm sure it's not that bad."

"No, it's a literal hole," he told them. "The ground opened up, from what we heard it stretches from Bushland all the way across to Washburn. We had to backtrack a little and head through Wildarado to get here."

"Jesus." Jensen said.

"We should get you guys upstairs," Jared said. "We have a ton of medical supplies and food."

"Sounds good," Jeff replied. "By the way, this is Felicia."

They looked over at her, her left arm was in a sling, her clothes were dirty and torn and she had a wound of some sort on her chest or shoulder, her shirt was stained with blood.

Jared led the way into the mall and it took the two of them to help Jeff up the escalator.

When they arrived at the food court, Misha was already there, a stack of first aid supplies was piled up on the table and Rachel and Chris had set up the fire and had brought some food over.

Jensen dealt with Jeff while Jared helped patch up Felicia.

Jeff took off his jacket and Jensen could see he had a large wound on his abdomen and as he explained it, he had received it on day one, he had been trapped after an earthquake hit Denver and he had woken up to find a piece of metal sticking out of him.

The wound wasn't healing too badly but it was taking a long time to recover fully.

After Jensen handed him a couple of painkillers and an antibiotic, he set about cleaning the wound.

Other than that, he had a bunch of scrapes and bruises but nothing serious, at least nothing that was visible.

"Do you think your arm is broken?" Jared asked Felicia. "Or is it just sprained?"

"It's broken," she replied. "And it hurts like a son of a bitch."

Jared picked up the same painkillers and antibiotics that Jensen had given to Jeff and gave them to Felicia.

"The best we can do is a wrist splint, we found a bunch of them in the pharmacy, not as good as a cast but still pretty sturdy."

"Maybe they should clean up, shower before we finished patching them up."

"You have showers?" Felicia asked.

"Yeah in the gym downstairs, we'll take you down there."

"Oh my god," Felicia said with a laugh. "Do you know how long it's been since I've had a shower, weeks. We found a not too disgusting lake a few weeks ago but other than that, nothing."

Rachel helped her to her feet. "We can get you clean clothes as well."

After showering, eating and having their wounds properly dressed, they settled in to get a few hours of sleep.

"This is crazy," Jensen said. "I get how you felt when we showed up, Jeff turning up like this..."

"He was your Professor," Jared said. "Both of you?"

Misha shook his head. "I know who he is but I never took his class and yeah, it's fucking bizarre that he's here."

****

It was extremely early the next morning when the newcomers finally woke up, in all, they had slept for about 12 hours.

The others wouldn't have normally gotten up that early but given the circumstances, it would be rude not to.

Jared and Rachel made breakfast for everyone and given that it was a nice day, they ate out on the roof.

"How long have you guys been here?" Felicia asked.

"Rachel, Misha and I have been here from the start," Chris explained. "Jensen and Jared turned up about three weeks ago."

"What about you guys?" Jared asked. "Did you come across other survivors, do you have any idea what's going on?"

"FEMA had a camp set up just north of Pueblo." Felicia said.

"How many people were there?" Rachel wanted to know.

"A few thousand," Jeff replied. "It looked like they were doing the best they could, but supplies were low and people were panicking. I wouldn't be surprised if the camp fell pretty quickly."

"While you were out there," Jared began. "Did you see any bodies?"

He could feel everyone's eyes turn toward him and he felt a little uncomfortable.

"What do you mean?" Jeff asked. "Did we see people get killed? Yeah, a few."

Jared gave his head a shake. "That's not exactly what I meant, all of the things that have happened, the flooding, the earthquakes, the people who have been killed, where are they? Bodies don't just vanish into thin air, so where did they go?"

A loud rumble echoed in the distance and a flash of lightning illuminated the sky.

When they had come out onto the roof, the sky had been clear but these days it didn't take long for storms to roll in out of nowhere and for them to disappear just as quickly.

Soon after, they could feel the rain coming in, they could hear it hitting the rooftops of the buildings around them and when the wind picked up, it brought the rain right down on top of them.

They quickly made their way inside and settled around the fire that Chris had already managed to light. 

"Where were you heading?" Jensen asked them. "Back to Dallas?"

"That had been the plan," Jeff replied. "But it changed when the EMP hit, we just had to move day by day. Is your plan to stay here or...?"

"At some point," Jared said. "We're going to go west toward Albuquerque."

"What's in Albuquerque?"

"Our families," Jensen told them. "Hopefully."

****

A week had passed since the arrival of Jeff and Felicia and the entire group had finally made plans to leave the mall and head west.

Jensen and Misha had rearranged the trailers to fit in as many supplies as they could while still leaving enough room for Jax.

They knew it was going to be rough going with the bikes but they couldn't use the trailers without them.

When they had secured the trailers, they headed back to the second level.

Jared, Chris, and Jeff were sitting at the table but they couldn't see Rachel or Felicia.

Misha grabbed a couple of bottles of beer and handed one to Jensen.

"Where are the other two?" Jensen asked.

"They went over to the supermarket," Jared replied. "Packing up the supplies, we didn't factor in the need for certain toiletries, you know because we're clueless idiots."

Jensen cocked an eyebrow at him and then gave his head a shake. "Right, well they're not exactly wrong about that."

"There is still so much stuff here," Chris said. "That it feels kind of wrong to be leaving it behind. Obviously, we can't take everything but..."

"I get that," Jensen said. "But the trailers are packed tight and each of our packs is almost too heavy to carry. We'll be alright though, we're going to have enough food and water, that's what matters."

"Food for the dog too?" Chris asked.

Jared nodded back at him. "Yeah, there should be enough for him, besides, he's not as big of an eater as he used to be."

"Okay," Misha said. "I guess that means we're ready to go in the morning then. Oh, I almost forgot, we found these plastic ponchos as well, they fold up small enough to fit in your pocket."

"Sexy." Jensen replied with a chuckle.

Misha narrowed his eyes at him. "Yeah well, you'll think it is when you're having to walk through a fucking tornado."

A few minutes later, Rachel and Felicia returned with two shopping bags full of toiletries.

Rachel dropped her bag onto the table and reached inside and pulled out a small can and tossed it at Chris.

"What is this?"

Rachel sighed heavily. "Yeah, I figured you wouldn't know. It's called deodorant."

Chris pulled a face at her and she laughed back at him.

"The end of the world doesn't mean we have to smell like it," she added. "Got some toothpaste and toothbrushes as well."

"And a few more rolls of toilet tissue," Felicia said. "You can never have too much."

****

Later in the evening, after they had eaten they were lounging around their 'campsite'.

Jared was sitting at the table with a book while Chris was occupying himself by poking at the fire.

Jeff had already fallen asleep. He was healing a lot better with the help of antibiotics and painkillers but they knew that he was still in some pain and Jensen wondered how well he was going to be able to travel.

Rachel and Felicia were playing with a pack of cards they had found at the supermarket, Jensen had thought about playing but he was feeling a little restless.

They would be leaving in several hours and he was anxious about what they would find out there, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to sleep and that was making feel even worse.

"Jensen."

He turned around and saw Misha sticking his head out of the tent. "Can you please stop with the fidgety pacing and stay still for just a minute."

Jensen crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at him. "I'm not doing that."

Misha raised an eyebrow. "Yes you are and it's irritating, so can you sit down or come to bed or do something that's not driving everyone crazy."

"How long have those two been together?" Felicia asked, leaning toward Rachel in hopes that Jensen wouldn't hear her.

"Senior year of high school," Rachel replied. "So, four years now."

"Are they always like this?"

Jensen spun around to face Rachel and Felicia. "You know that I can hear you, right?"

Rachel nodded back at him. "Yes, that's why I'm talking so loud so that you would hear what I'm saying."

Jensen narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean 'always like this'?"

Chris groaned loudly causing Rachel to laugh.

"Screw you guys." Jensen retorted.

He walked over to the tent and flopped down onto the sleeping bag and he tried to get comfortable but Jax came barreling into the tent and started pulling at the pillow Jensen was lying on.

"Even Jax thinks you're being annoying," Misha told him. "So stop stressing out."

****

They had been on the road for less than an hour when the rain came in. An icy wind was pushing the rain at all angles and they had to stop to put on extra jackets and the rain ponchos.

They had planned to cut across the plains but with the rain, it would just create a muddy mess and with the bikes, it would be even more difficult.

The rain lasted almost two hours before it finally let up but they were all completely soaked through and completely miserable.

It had still been less than four hours since they had left the mall behind but it was clear to Jensen at least, that each one of the group wanted to stop, to get into some dry clothes and to try and warm up a little.

"Okay this is getting ridiculous," Jensen finally said. "My fucking boots are full of water and I can barely feel my fingers."

"Yeah," Jeff replied. "We should stop for a bit."

It was still too damp to try and light a fire for warmth but even just changing out of their wet clothes made a world of difference.

An hour later, they were back on the road and had agreed that if the rain stayed away, they would begin cutting through the plains in the late afternoon.

The sun was high overhead now and it amazed Jensen that there was not a single cloud in the sky.

As cold as it had been that morning, it was now unbelievably hot and they had to begin removing layers of clothes.

In the early afternoon, Jared let Chris take over the bike and he let Jax off the trailer for a little bit.

The old boy enjoyed stretching his legs but it soon became clear to Jared that if they didn't have those trailers, he wasn't sure how well Jax would do with all the hiking.

****

The rest of the day, they were able to make good time with the weather staying consistently warm.

Just after the sun went down, they stopped for the night, setting up camp. They had only brought one tent with them, supposedly it was roomy enough for four people, but Jensen highly doubted it would comfortably fit two.

They mostly brought it with them as a last resort.

They had picked a spot that had a lot of tree cover and they rigged up a tarp to provide them with a little bit of shelter.

Jared and Chris worked quickly to set up a fire and once they were settled in, they ate their first meal since breakfast.

They were all fairly exhausted so they knew that as long as the weather held and they weren't jolted by any earthquakes, they might actually get a decent sleep.

One by one they slowly drifted off to sleep, Jensen was the last one awake and before he went to sleep, he added a few more pieces of wood to the fire and checked that the stones around it were secure enough before he laid back down between Misha and Jared.

He had no idea how long he had been asleep for when a loud rumble echoed across the plains.

The noise was so severe that they could feel the ground vibrate underneath them and in moments, the seven of them were wide awake and on their feet.

They moved away from the trees and into the clearing.

"What the fuck is that?" Chris cried out as the rumbling sound grew louder.

"What is what?" Misha asked.

Chris pointed to the horizon. "That fucking light."

A pale yellow light seemed to dance along the horizon, it looked as though it were sparking, dull at first but growing brighter by the minute.

"What the hell?" Jeff muttered as he took a few steps forward.

The light grew in intensity and each one of them feared what was about to happen. The past few months had been horribly unpredictable so even their greatest nightmares weren't the worst things that had come to pass.

"Jensen."

Jensen turned on his heel to face Jared who was standing directly behind him, he looked as terrified as he felt.

Jared stepped up beside him and folded his arms over his chest.

The lights in the distance flickered several times before they seemed to dissipate entirely. Jensen wasn't entirely sure that was a good thing and he knew that for certain when another loud boom echoed across the plains.

He couldn't understand how it could have been so loud, there must have been 100 miles or more between them and the horizon, whatever had happened, it was serious and he feared for any lives that may have been close to the explosion.

A moment later he felt a hand land on his arm and turning to his right, he found himself looking directly into the face of Misha.

He was so close in fact that Jensen narrowed his eyes and leaned back.

"What are you doing?"

Misha took a step back. "We can't stay here; we need to get moving."

Jensen glared over at Jeff who was busy staring off into the distance, he could tell Jeff was worried about what to do next, he may have somehow become the de-facto leader but even he had his doubts that he was going to get them all killed.

"He's right," Jeff announced. "We need real shelter because whatever just happened, if it gets any closer than that and we're outside, it will kill us all."

They made quick work to pack up the camp and Jensen was careful to make sure that the fire was completely out and covered and when he was finished, it was almost as if it had never been there to begin with.

All seven of them gathered at the edge of the tree cluster giving the horizon one final look before they headed out.

They traveled in single file, it was for no particular reason really.

Jeff took the lead with Chris close behind, then there was Misha, followed by Rachel, Jared was next while Jensen was just a few steps behind and Felicia brought up the rear.

Despite their lack of sleep, they moved quickly across the open plains and they estimated that they had been traveling for about three hours when they stumbled across another tree cluster.

A small creek, almost devoid of water lay just beyond the tree line.

"We gonna keep going or are we gonna stop for a while?" Chris asked.

Jeff dumped his backpack onto the ground and sat down on a crumbling tree stump. "We can't stop here; we need a proper shelter."

"Okay, I feel like I need to point something out," Rachel said. "What happens when we find this proper shelter?"

Jeff glanced up at her and cocked an eyebrow at her. "What do you mean?"

“I mean, what happens when we find somewhere to shelter,” she continued. “What we just saw happen was what… less than one hundred miles away? How far are we going to have to go before we’re safe? Because if it happened there, it’s going to happen anywhere.”

“Wow,” Misha said. “Way to bring everyone down.”

Rachel spun on her heel to face him, anger flashing in her eyes. “You know that I’m right."

A deafening silence fell over the group as they processed the idea that they may never actually be safe again, Rachel had made a good point, where were they going to go that would keep them alive.

"We keep heading toward Albuquerque," Jeff said.

Jensen glanced over at Jared for a moment. "We all know that whatever happened earlier, it was in that direction."

No one said anything but they knew that Jensen was right.

It might not have been in the exact location they were going but it probably wasn't far away from it.

"It had to have been an explosion right?" Chris said. "I mean to create that light and boom, it was an explosion of some kind."

Jensen glared over at him and then gave his head a shake.

"Truth is," Jeff said. "We have no idea what or where it was, all we can do is keep going, try and find your families"

****

They kept walking for another few hours before they stopped again, they pulled out their sleeping bags and built a fire but they didn't get too settled in, they wanted to move in a hurry if they had to.

As the others fell asleep one by one, Jensen sat there, his legs crossed, hands resting on his knees and he stared into the fire, it crackled and hissed sending a tiny spark into the sky.

If the situation wasn't so dire, it would be almost beautiful.

Not having any awareness of how much time had passed, he felt his eyelids getting heavy and he exhaled sharply as he laid down.

****

For a brief moment, as he stirred from his sleep, he thought he heard something, a slight noise that was reminiscent of a cat's purr as it absorbed the comfort of its human but as his surroundings became clearer and sleep drifted further away, he knew that it couldn't possibly be a cat and that's when his fear escalated.

He knew that he was lying on the damp ground and when he rolled onto his side, he saw the remains of the fire, a few tiny embers still burned but it wasn't enough to give off any warmth.

Sitting up, he rubbed at his eyes as glanced around, he was the last one to wake up and after getting to his feet, he quickly glanced around for the others.

He finally spotted them standing about 10 yards away, they appeared to be staring at the horizon and he was curious to know what was going on.

"No one could have woken me up?"

Both Jared and Misha turned to look at him and while Jared looked a little sheepish, Misha just shrugged his shoulders.

"Yeah, thanks."

He stepped up beside Jared and folded his arms over his chest. "So... what are we looking at?"

Chris pointed toward the horizon and after squinting for several minutes, Jensen finally saw a small dot against the blue sky, every now and then the sun would catch the mystery object.

"What the fuck is that?" Jensen said to no one particular. "Is whatever the hell that is, always been there?"

Chris turned to look at him and then shook his head. "No idea, I mean we've been going the same direction and no one has noticed it."

"Last night." Rachel said, and when she failed to continue, they all turned to stare at her.

"Got anything more to add to that?" Chris asked her.

"That noise that we heard," she replied. "We can all agree that it came from that general direction, right? Well, whatever the hell that is, maybe it only appeared because of that noise."

Jensen cocked an eyebrow at her. "Okay, it's possible but uh... what is it?"

Rachel crossed her arms over her chest and glared back at him. "Any particular reason why you'd assume that I would know the answer to that?"

Jensen muttered under his breath as he glanced back at the horizon. He could have sworn that the mystery object had somehow changed shaped and appeared just that little bit closer.

"Okay, anyone get the sudden urge to get as far away from here as possible?" Misha asked.

They packed up their things and continued west across the plains.

****

It was three days before they came across another town and they settled in an old house that still looked pretty sturdy.

It was still light out and Jensen, Jared, and Chris decided to do a little looking around.

As they made their way down the street, Jensen noticed some red markings on the doors of the houses.

“What’s that all about?”

“FEMA,” Chris told them. “They must have come through here and evacuated everyone. The numbers are how many people, how many survivors and the date.”

“So that means they came through just a few days after,” Jared said. “This is a fairly small town, to get FEMA through here, they got lucky.”

“You guys were at a FEMA camp though,” Chris replied. “There are probably dozens of them scattered all over the place.”

Jensen shrugged his shoulders. "I guess so, but if any of them were close enough to..."

“Yeah,” Chris said, cutting him off. “I heard rumors that a camp in Northern California had been taken over by the survivors and it was pretty rough. They were executing ‘criminal’s’, were strict about weapons, that sort of thing.”

“I’ve also heard that there are illnesses sweeping through the camps, that’s one of the main reasons we stayed for so long at the mall, it was just safer there.”

“What sort of illnesses?” Jared asked.

Chris gave his shoulders a shrug. “I’m not sure. I mean with all the flooding, I reckon that would cause a fair amount of illness, some of that water is going to be rancid."

As they continued to walk down the street, they began to notice shell casings on the ground and the closer they got to the center of town, the worse it became.

They saw bullet holes in the walls of the buildings, smashed glass and debris littered the ground as they approached town hall, they saw that half the building was reduced to nothing but rubble.

But the damage hadn't been caused by an earthquake.

"Why the hell would anyone do that?" Jared asked no one in particular.

Jensen gave his shoulders a shrug. "I don't know. People panicked."

"And attacked the ones who came to help them?" Jared replied. "How does that make any fucking sense?"

After a few more minutes of walking, they suddenly stopped and spun on their heels when they heard the sound of gunfire.

None of them said anything, they shared a quick glance and then started running.

They took a couple of wrong turns in trying to get back to the house but when they finally cut across the street and rounded the corner, they saw who they wrongly assumed to be Jeff standing at the side of the house.

Jensen almost knocked Chris over when they came to a sudden stop as the person, not Jeff, turned toward them and started firing.

Jensen grabbed Chris' arm and yanked him backward.

Jared was already crouched down behind the fence of the neighboring house but there were missing planks and it was barely providing enough cover for them.

"What the fuck is going on?" Jared cried out. "Who is that?"

Jensen and Chris shared a look and Jared stared at him in annoyance.

"My guess," Chris said. "Is that they're after whatever supplies they think we have."

"So my next question is," Jared replied. "Why aren't Jeff and Misha shooting back?"

Jensen inhaled sharply, he knew why Misha would have been reluctant to shoot at people, despite the situation, they were only doing what they thought they had to do to survive.

Jeff, on the other hand, might not be so reluctant.

"We have to do something," Chris said. "We can't let them take out supplies, no matter how desperate they might be."

A few more shots fired off and Jared cringed at the noise.

This time though, someone inside the house did fire back, rounds ricocheted off the fence and the footpath.

One bullet came particularly close to the mystery shooter and he had to throw himself back to avoid being hit.

After letting off another volley of bullets, the shooter had to reload and Jensen took the opportunity to motion toward the side of the house.

They only way they were getting back inside where if they went through the back door.

But they also knew that there could be more people standing guard so they had to be extra careful.

They snuck along the side of the house as more gunshots echoed out.

Jensen was the first to reach the backdoor and as he tried the handle, he cursed under his breath when he remembered that he had specifically checked it himself to make sure that it was locked from the inside.

Glancing over his shoulder, he looked at Chris and Jared.

Jared was crouched down near the fence while Chris was trying to open a window. It was making a lot of noise as he rattled the window in its frame and he quickly realized that they weren't going to be able to get in that way.

"What the hell are we supposed to do?" Jared asked. "We stupidly didn't bring any weapons with us, so we're supposed to fend them off by throwing rocks at them?"

Jensen cocked an eyebrow at him and then gave his head a shake. "Whatever you think will work."

Jared glared back at him as Chris let out a chuckle.

"Are you fucking serious?" Jared scolded him.

"Calm down," Chris replied. "We'll find another way inside."

They inched their back along the fence but then Chris stopped when he heard something.

"What is it?"

"I don't know, I heard some clicking noises."

Jensen waited for him to elaborate but Chris remained silent.

Instead, he crept back toward the door and was surprised to find it was open.

He glanced over his shoulder and waved at Jensen.

Once they were inside the house, they moved cautiously to make sure that no one else had managed to get in and they eventually found Jeff, Rachel, Felicia and Misha on the second floor.

"Jesus," Jensen cried out. "What the fuck happened?"

He rushed over to Misha who was sitting on the bed, his left hand clutching at his right shoulder.

He could see blood and his heart dropped.

"Misha, what the hell?"

Rachel dropped a bag onto the bed and pulled out bandages and other first aid supplies.

"I'm fine," Misha tried reassuring him. "It grazed my shoulder but that's it. I swear that I'm okay."

Jensen sucked in a deep breath and allowed Rachel to patch him up.

It really wasn't that bad but the fact that he had been hit at all send a cold shiver down his spine.

If he had been standing just a few inches over, things could have ended very differently.

"Do you know how many are out there?" Jeff asked. "Did you see anyone?"

Jensen shook his head. "No, we didn't see anyone else."

"Okay," Jeff replied. "So, there's only one shooter then?"

"A fucking ballsy one at that," Chris added. "So why exactly is the asshole still standing?"

They all turned to look at Chris.

"What?" he retorted. "Like we don't have enough fucking problems as it is without some asshole trying to kill us."

"He has a point," Rachel said. "He seems pretty determined to get in here and we can't just stay here, so..."

Another round of shots hit the side of the building and Jared flinched.

"He's just trying to survive, like the rest of us," Misha said. "Killing him won't help anyone."

Chris groaned loudly. "Sure it will, it will help us."

"Okay," Rachel replied. "This isn't getting us anywhere. What do we do about him?"

Jensen lifted his hands to his face and wiped at his eyes.

The shooter fired again, this time hitting the windows, the glass shattered and Felicia who was closest to them flung herself backwards.

Jeff glanced over at Misha and Jensen who were still sitting on the bed, he didn't say anything and then he turned back to the window and fired off several more shots.

Jensen knew what he was doing and while he didn't exactly agree with it, he would do anything to protect his loved ones and he couldn't do that if he were dead.

A few minutes later, Jeff turned away from the window and lowered his gun.

"It's done?" Chris asked and Jeff nodded. "Then we need to get the fuck out of here, now. Before anyone else shows up."


	4. Thrown Into the Flames

It took almost a week to reach Santa Rosa, New Mexico.

They hadn't encountered a single person on the trek there but when they arrived in the town itself, they were stunned to find the National Guard had set up a post there.

There were a few other civilians, but not many of them.

From the moment they had arrived, it had been made clear that they wouldn't be allowed past but no one would give them any answers as to why.

All they had been told was that if they wanted to stay in Santa Rosa, they had to set up camp in the designated area.

They had been traveling for so long that they figured they would stay there for at least a few nights, catch up on some sleep and then make decisions about how they could get into Albuquerque.

Jared, Jensen, and Misha had set up the tent and they already had a fire going.

There was another group of people set up next to them, three adults and a teenager who looked more bored than anything else.

As the hour grew late and they began to settle in, Jensen struck up a conversation with their neighbor, Richard.

He was hoping that they would have some information to share.

"Where have you guys come from?" Richard asked him.

"Dallas," Jensen told him. "And it's been a hell of a fucking journey to get here."

"Yeah I bet," he replied. "Where are you hoping to go?"

Jensen sucked in a deep breath as he glanced over at Jared. "Albuquerque, our families are there."

Richard lifted his hand and ran it through his hair. "Do you know anything about what's going on?"

Jensen narrowed his eyes at him. "Rumors and stories mostly."

"Specific to Albuquerque."

Jensen swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat and then he shook his head. "No."

He feared the answer, and had every reason to do so.

"The National Guard, they're not going to let you through, all the major roads in and out of the city are blocked."

Jensen swallowed hard again and squeezed his eyes shut.

"I'm sorry to tell you man, but the city is gone," Richard explained. "As in the entire area is nothing but a giant hole, supposedly Santa Fe got hit pretty hard too."

"And the uh... the people?" Jensen asked as he fought back the urge to scream.

"I heard there were evacuations but couldn't tell you for sure where they were taken, most people seem to agree it was north up through Colorado and into Nebraska or Wyoming."

Jensen wasn't entirely sure what to think, should he remain hopeful that his family was still alive or should begin to mourn.

"What caused it do you know?" Jensen asked him.

"Apparently it was a faultline that no one knew about, if the rumors are true, it winds through Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico."

"Have you heard anything about California?" Misha asked as he joined their conversation.

Richard gave his shoulders a shrug. "Not really, but I can only imagine, the San Andreas fault and all that, I guess it's probably not there anymore."

"How long have you been here?" Misha asked.

"A couple of weeks," Richard said. "We're waiting for the next evac, they say it will leave in about four days."

"To where?"

"We're hoping Nebraska or Wyoming," he said. "Wherever they sent the others."

Jensen lifted his hand to his face and stared at Misha.

"Well if it's true and Albuquerque is a no go, then maybe we need to head north too," Misha said. "Your families could be there."

"Wait," Jensen said. "How are they evacuating people?"

"They have two diesel engine buses, they're from like the 50's or something ridiculous," Richard explained. "And from what the National Guard has told us, they've already made four trips."

"If you've been here for two weeks, how come they haven't told you more?"

"My guess, they don't know that much more than we do," Richard replied. "A couple of the guys told me that even though they don't really know anything, it's their job to protect us, so they'll keep doing that until someone tells them to stop, or until something stops them."

"Jesus," Jensen muttered under his breath. "This is fucking insane."

Richard nodded back at him. "That it is. Whatever is happening, I think we can all agree that it's the end of the world right?"

****

Three days later, the buses arrived back in Santa Rosa.

It had taken that long to convince Jared that Albuquerque was a lost cause and that their best bet was to head north.

Jeff had told them that if the camps proved to be fruitless, he had a friend who lived in South Dakota and that if anyone were to survive the fucking apocalypse, it would be him.

Before the world ended, the trip would have taken about 12 hours but in their new environment, it took them almost three days to reach Grand Island, Nebraska.

The trip had been long and uncomfortable despite being on a bus and not walking, it felt strange to leave behind their bikes.

They were able to bring all of their supplies, but the bike had been deemed an unnecessary burden, they would have had to have been fastened to the rear of the bus and some of the roads were rather perilous.

The two buses were carrying a total of 68 people, 20 less than the previous trip and Jensen knew exactly why that was.

Every day there were fewer survivors as the terrain became more unstable and uninhabitable.

"Jensen."

He gave his head a shake as he stared out of the window and when he heard his name called, he turned in the seat.

Misha was staring in the aisle, staring down at him. "Jensen, are you coming?"

"What?"

Misha cocked an eyebrow at him. "We're here, are you getting off the bus?"

Jensen exhaled sharply and nodded back at him. "Yeah, sorry."

He followed Misha off the bus. The others were waiting for their things to be unloaded.

It was already getting dark, so they couldn't really see much of their surroundings.

Jensen had never been here before so he had no idea where they were going. He didn't know of any landmarks and that scared him a little bit, if they needed to leave or if anything happened, he wouldn't know what to do.

After the buses were unloaded, they were escorted into the camp and what they saw surprised and confused them.

They had been expecting to find a large settlement of survivors, all of the people who had been evacuated from the major cities but what they saw was the opposite of that.

"What the hell?" Jensen said as he glanced over at Misha. "I thought this was a major evac site."

Misha narrowed his eyes as he looked around. From what they could see, there were at most about 200 people.

"What the fuck is happening?" Jeff asked no one in particular.

"I have no idea," Chris replied. "We should find a site first though, I don't want to be hauling this crap around."

They found a campsite and while the others settled in, Jeff and Jensen went off in search of someone who was in charge of this place.

It was no easy feat though, there were plenty of people but the majority of them seemed to be civilians and most likely wouldn't know any more than they did.

Frustrated and exhausted, Jeff stopped at a tent where a man about his age was sitting with a small white dog.

"Do you have any idea what's going on here, who's in charge?" Jeff asked him.

"Honestly, I'm not entirely sure," the man told him. "It's a FEMA camp but there's Sergeant Major from the National Guard who has been here for a couple of weeks now, your best bet would be to talk to him."

Jeff nodded back at him. "Okay thanks, now would you know where to find him?"

"I can't say for sure," he replied. "But there aren't that many people here and he kind of stands out."

"Okay, thanks."

They kept walking and it soon became clear that this wasn't the FEMA camp they were hoping for, there were hardly any people and the resources seemed to be at a bare minimum.

Jeff stopped walking and raised his hands to his face and wiped at his eyes.

"This is fucking pointless," he said. "This place is a disaster."

"Yeah," Jensen added. "And obviously we haven't checked all the sites but I haven't seen anyone I recognize."

"If we can't find this National Guard guy, then we should wait until tomorrow, check out the rest of the camp and if we don't find any of your families, then we should keep heading north."

Jensen stared at the ground for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, I don't think it would be a good idea to stick around here."

****

Jensen couldn't get comfortable no matter what he tried, he couldn't stop shifting and rearranging his pillow and sleeping bag.

He felt Misha move beside him several times but he never looked at him or said anything and Jensen felt a twinge of jealousy over his ease at falling asleep.

Exhaling sharply, he sat up and kicked off his sleeping bag. Misha stirred again and this time he rolled over and with sleepy eyes, he glanced up at him.

"Jen," he said. "You can't keep doing this. You have to get some sleep."

Jensen sighed again. "I know I do but I can't help it. I can't shut my mind off."

Misha reached out and rested his hand on Jensen's knee. "I get that, I really do but if you keep stressing yourself out to the point of exhaustion, you're not going to help anyone."

"Easier said than done," Jensen replied. "I know that at this point, our families could be absolutely anywhere but... every time we find nothing, my heart breaks a little more."

"Well, tomorrow we'll find this National Guard guy, see if they have some sort of records of evacuees," Misha told him.

Jensen inhaled deeply and smiled sadly at him. "Yeah, maybe we'll find something."

****

They woke early the next morning and were finally able to track down the Sergeant Major.

But just like with everyone else that should have had answers, he didn't really know that much more than they did.

He told them that there were three FEMA camps in the north, the one in Grand Island, another one in Spokane, Washington and the third was located in Lexington, Kentucky.

He couldn't tell them though, if those camps were still operational or how of how many people were there.

There were some records of evacuations but they weren't detailed and they couldn't find any information on their families.

"Okay, this is pointless," Chris said. "We need to make some decisions here."

"Your friend, Jim," Misha asked. "He's in Hot Springs? And he'd be willing to help us?"

Jeff nodded back at him. "He is and he will. He's a good guy. He has a ranch in Hot Springs, his own water supply and food sources."

"Okay," Jensen said. "Now, how do we get there? Because on a good day, it would take like five days to walk that far."

"What if we could find a vehicle?" Jared asked.

They all turned to look at him.

"Sure, we'll just go to the nearest car dealership and pick out a fleet of fancy gold plated cars," Chris replied.

Jared glared back at him. "Don't be an ass. My point is that the National Guard found some working vehicles, why can't we?"

"Maybe," Jeff replied. "Something from the '80s or earlier, diesel engines might still be work if we're lucky."

"What about the airport," Rachel said. "Would they have any diesel vehicles?"

"Possibly," Jeff replied. "We can definitely check it out, we might at the very least be able to find something to move our supplies."

****

The camp was only a few miles south of the airport, it was a little awkward moving the supply trailer but they eventually arrived at the main entrance.

The south parking lot was full of cars but they already knew that none of them would be helpful, they needed something older.

"What about the maintenance vehicles, trolly carts, things like that?"

"Maybe," Chris said. "The maintenance vehicles are probably more likely to be diesel than any of the cars out here."

After 30 minutes of searching the entire airport, they found a warehouse type building that housed about 10 different vehicles, most of them were useless for their needs but they did find a 1988 Ford Utility truck.

The cab only seated three but the bed of the truck would more than accommodate the rest of them and their supplies.

But their hopes were dashed when Chris couldn't get the engine to start.

They did know that it would be a long shot but they had been optimistic that they would be able to find something.

Jared and Jeff checked out a couple of the other trucks but they came up empty.

Chris refused to give up though, he was determined to keep trying the truck because was convinced that he could get it to go.

After checking and rechecking the engine and the fuel, he couldn't figure out a reason as to why it wouldn't go.

"Maybe we need to move on," Rachel said. "This clearly isn't working."

As if on cue, the engine roared to life and Chris cried out triumphantly.

"I fucking knew it," he said. "There was no reason for it not to start."

He didn't turn the engine off, he was too afraid too in case it wouldn't start again.

"Any luck with more fuel because according to the fuel gauge, there's about three-quarters of a tank but I can't say for sure that it works properly." He explained.

"We haven't found anything," Jeff told him. "But that's a good start at least."

They loaded up the supplies and Chris took the wheel with Jeff and Felicia joining him in the cab while Misha, Jensen, Jared, and Rachel sat in the back with Jax and the supplies.

"Is it wrong that I'm expecting it to break down at any second?" Jared quietly asked Jensen.

Jensen stared back at him and then shook his head. "No, you're not wrong for thinking that, it's exactly what I'm expecting. But if we can cut the trip down to a few days instead of five, I'll be fucking thrilled."

****

They made it to Alliance, Nebraska.

Chris ad pushed the old truck as far as it would go, it wasn't a case of not having enough fuel, they had passed plenty of still usable gas stations but the engine was old and it started overheating and smoking about an hour south of Alliance before it became so bad that they couldn't keep going.

Along the way, they had made a stop in Dunning for the specific purpose of finding a new way to transport their supplies once the truck stopped being useful.

The small town had a high school and they were able to find a couple of bikes, they weren't as sturdy as their previous ones but they would get the job done.

With the trip having been cut much shorter, they didn't see the need to stop for the night, they wanted to get to Hot Springs as soon as possible.

It was still going to take them a couple of days to reach the city.

They stuck to the main highway and while they didn't venture into any of the towns along the way, they could tell that there was substantial damage everywhere.

As the sun slowly disappeared and the temperatures dropped, they decided to rest for a few hours in a town called Chadron.

It was one of the least damaged towns they had come across but it was still clear that there weren't likely to be survivors, if there were, they didn't make their presence known.

They settled on spending those few hours in the Walmart Supercenter, despite Jared's protests about it being across the street from a cemetery.

After a quick search of the building, they were a little disappointed to find that there was no running water.

They did manage to restock a few supplies, some bottles of water, boxes of pop-tarts and a couple of tins of beans.

"I only want to stay here for a couple of hours, so if you want to get some sleep..." Jeff told them.

"Yeah, no chance of that," Jensen replied. "Do we really need to even stay that long?"

Jeff stared back at him and then cocked an eyebrow. "What, I thought that you wanted to rest for a while."

Jensen shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah well, what can I say?"

Jeff glanced at the others but none of them objected to the idea. "Okay, let's go then."

****

Jensen sighed with relief when Jeff informed them that they had finally arrived at Jim's ranch.

It was almost dark when they finally got there, they saw that the place well protected.

A large fence ran around the entire property, they couldn't see the actual house; it was set far back from the road.

Jeff knew Jim fairly well, and knew he would have alarms in place.

With no phones though, he wasn't entirely sure how to let Jim know that they were there.

"Well, maybe we could just head on up but stay out of range in case he starts firing." Chris suggested.

"Maybe or maybe I could just start firing now."

They all spun around and were surprised to see Jim standing there. He had a backpack slung over his shoulder and a shotgun in his hands.

Jeff took a step forward and held out his hand which Jim happily shook.

"I was wondering if you might show up at some point," Jim told him. "It's good to see you."

He led the way up to the house and they saw that Jeff hadn't been wrong about him.

Everything was very well set up.

"Have you had any issues?" Jeff asked. "People showing up and that sort of thing?"

"A few here and there," Jim said. "Some more ballsy than others but I'm still here."

They approached the house and Jim pulled a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door.

Once inside, they gathered in the living room.

"What's it like out there?" Jim asked.

"It's pretty rough," Jeff replied. "There is so much damage, entire towns have been wiped off the map. Most of the cities, you can't even get into."

"And for some reason, there are very few survivors," Jared added. "Or bodies for that matter."

Chris groaned loudly and Jensen glared at him.

"What's that about?"

"He's not wrong," Jeff said. "There are so few survivors and with all this bullshit that's still happening, the bodies just aren't... there are no bodies."

Jim narrowed his eyes as he studied each of them.

"Are we really going to discuss this again?" Chris asked. "At this point, does it even matter?"

"Yes, it matters," Jared replied. "And aren't you even just the slightest bit curious as to why?"

"Honestly," he said. "I'm not because we can't do shit about it so why waste our energy on something that we can't change."

"Okay, well I have no idea what's going on," Jim replied. "But how about we just make sure that it doesn't happen to us."

Jim had three extra bedrooms, so Jensen and Misha took one room, Jared and Chris took another and Rachel and Felicia took the third, leaving Jeff to take the pullout couch, he seemed to be fine with that because at least it wasn't a sleeping bag on the cold hard ground.

Jim also had running water, hot running water at that and after each one had taken a brief shower, they gathered in the kitchen, Jim had cooked a hot meal for them.

"How do you have hot water and power?" Jeff asked him.

"Furnace," Jim replied. "I connected it to the water system a few years ago as a money-saving endeavor, who would have ever guessed it would come in handy during the fucking apocalypse."

"So you really haven't been out there?" Rachel asked him as she sat at the table next to Jeff.

Jim gave his head a shake. "Not really no. I did go out a couple of times in the first few weeks after that first day but I don't really have a need to go out searching for supplies. When people started losing their shit, it wasn't worth it."

"You said earlier that people have tried coming out here." Jared said.

Jim nodded. "They have, only a couple of them were in need of actual help, the rest, well they wanted what I have and I put a stop to that."

"What about the earthquakes and storms, how bad have they been up here?"

Jim carried his plate to the table and took a seat. "A few good shakes, opened up the ground about half a mile from here and blocked an access route but nothing closer than that. The storms have been the real issue so far, well except for the fire about a month ago."

Jensen cocked an eyebrow at him. "Fire."

"Yeah, north of here," Jim said. "Thought at one point that I would have to leave. It destroyed the northern part of the city. Honestly, that was probably the last time I saw anyone."

"So, you have no idea if there are any FEMA camps around here?" Jeff wanted to know.

Jim thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. "Sorry. Before the EMP, there were a bunch of helicopters, couldn't tell you where they were based. That's about as close as any sort of authority that I've seen."

They were still no closer to discovering where these damn camps were and Jensen started to wonder if they actually existed, it was looking less and less likely.

****

He had no idea what the actual time was but figured it was well after midnight before he climbed into bed.

Laying back against the pillow, he relished in its comfort and he tilted his head to the side and watched Misha for a brief moment.

He had been asleep for a while now but this time he wasn't feeling any sort of jealousy over his ability to sleep because right now, he felt comfortable, clean and for the first time in weeks, he wasn't feeling that same level of anxiety that had been plaguing him.

He wasn't entirely sure why though, they were no closer to finding their families but there had been some sort of shift.

He wondered if it was because they were at Jim's and he had such an incredible set up that it reassured him that they could one day have that too.

"Jensen."

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"Mmmhhm," Misha replied. "No."

"What?" Jensen asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"It wasn't you."

"Uh, okay sure."

"Is the window open?" Misha asked.

Jensen scrunched up his nose at him and then glanced over at the window. "Yeah, why?"

"I keep smelling smoke."

Jensen sniffed the air but he couldn't smell anything. "What are you talking about?"

"Mmm, a few days now," Misha said. "I've been smelling smoke."

"You sure it's not from the crack you've been smoking."

Misha opened one eye and stared over at him. "Hilarious. I'm serious. I've been smelling it on and off for days, Chris thought the same thing."

Jensen couldn't say that he had smelt anything but his mind went back to the day they had arrived at Jim's almost two weeks ago, he had mentioned that the north of the city had been destroyed by fire and he wondered if maybe the smell of smoke was still lingering.

But then he remembered that it would have been about six weeks ago and figured the smell wouldn't hang around that long, surely.

And now he couldn't stop thinking about it.

He sat up and stared toward the window.

"What are you doing?" Misha asked him.

Jensen leaned over and gave him a quick kiss before he climbed out of bed. "Don't worry about it, I'll be back in a few minutes."

He made his way downstairs and pulled on his boots.

Opening the door, he was a little startled when he glanced down and saw Jax who looked particularly eager to get outside.

The dog tore off across the yard, in desperate need of relieving himself and with a shake of his head, Jensen pulled the door closed behind him.

He wouldn't go too far, he just wanted to take a quick walk, see if he could smell this mystery smoke or possibly seen anything.

The back of the property slopped uphill slightly and when he reached the top, he glanced around but couldn't make out much.

He wasn't even entirely sure what he was looking for but when his eyes caught it, his blood ran cold.

A sharp unnerving shiver ran down his spine and he wanted to run, to tell the others what was happening but he couldn't move.

It was too dark to judge the distance but he knew that if he could see it, it was far too close.

A fire.

Jax's barks disrupted his fear long enough for him to spin on his heel and he began running back toward the house.

When he stepped inside, he was a little surprised to see Jim standing in the living room.

"Where were you?" He asked him.

"I uh... there's a fucking fire." Jensen replied.

Jim closed his eyes and cursed under his breath.

"Yeah I figured as much," he said. "I knew that I could smell smoke."

"What the fuck do we do?" Jensen asked.

****

Jensen dropped an armload of firewood onto the ground, apparently, it was too close to Chris because he narrowed his eyes and glared up at him.

"You're fine princess." Jensen said with a smirk.

As he leaned down and picked up one of the pieces of wood and dropped it onto the fire, sparks flew into the air and danced and swirled around.

When he was satisfied that the fire would last a few more hours, he walked around and sat next to Misha.

The ones who weren’t sleeping, were simply sitting there, enjoying the warmth from the fire but moments later, the silence was broken by a low rumble in the distance and out of the corner of his eye, Jensen saw a streak of light and his memory took him back to the night he discovered the fire.

After alerting everyone to the new development, they had stayed up monitoring it.

When the sun rose the next morning, they discovered that it was even closer than he had realized and after a full day of discussing it to death, they had agreed to leave.

Jim had needed a lot of convincing, after all, it was the property he had lived most of his life on, he didn't want to leave it all behind and start over but the fire was too large and too close.

There was nothing that they could do to stop it.

Now they were camping out in the middle of another fucking field in god only knew where and the threat of a storm lingered over them, literally.

He couldn't tell how far away it was but as always, if he could see anything, it was too close.

Moments later, an enormous boom echoed around them and Jensen and Misha were both on their feet in an instant.

It was too dark to see more than a few feet in front of them and that terrified him, they couldn't protect themselves from something they couldn't see.

Jensen could feel Misha’s hand on his arm, his grip tightening as the sky became illuminated by a very large, very bright bolt of lightning.

Jensen exhaled sharply as Misha's fingers dug into his skin.

"What the hell was that?" Jared asked as he joined them, staring off into the darkness. 

Jensen swallowed around the lump that had formed in his throat as the others were now awake, wondering what it was that he had seen.

He didn't know what it was but he had his suspicions and if he was correct, they needed to find shelter, now.

There wasn't exactly a lot of cover, a few scatterings of trees but not much else.

The rumbling grew louder as they stood by the fire.

He turned toward Jeff who was fumbling in the dark with his pack. “We saw the remains of that old house.”

“Yeah,” Jim said. “What about it, there was nothing left of it.”

“But it’s possible that there might be a root cellar, storm shelter, something, anything to protect us from this.”

“He’s right,” Felicia added. “It really feels like a storm is coming in, given the past, we shouldn’t be outside when it hits.”

"Grab your things, we need to go."

The quickly gathered up their things and when another boom echoed above them, they took off running across the field.

Sucking in a deep breath, Jared made quick work of packing up their things while Jensen made sure the fire was out and when another boom echoed above them, they took off running across the field.

As they approached the old remains, Jensen felt a tremor under his feet and as he glanced over his shoulder toward Jared, who was right behind him, he knew that they didn't have much time.

Pushing through the debris, they searched for the possible remains of a shelter.

It wasn't until Bobby and Felicia noticed a patch of grass near the garage that didn't seem quite right and as the others made their way over, they saw a rusty hinge covered in dirt.

John stepped forward and kicked at the damn thing until it popped off and fell into the grass.

It was a root cellar and it didn’t smell particularly fresh but it was the best they had, once all of them were inside, there wasn’t exactly a ton of room but it would be comfortable enough to wait out the storm.

The cellar was about eight feet wide and he figured about ten feet in length, on one side was a set of empty shelves but it still gave them enough room.

Having a fire was going to be an issue, there was poor ventilation, not to mention a ceiling, so that option was out.

They would make do though, they had been in tougher spots and having to wait out here for a few hours, or a few days, wasn't going to be that big of a deal.

As they sat down on the dirt floor, they could hear the rumbling as it appeared to grow closer and closer.

Jared squeezed his eyes shut and pulled his knees up to his chest.

Jensen wished that there was something that he could say to make him feel better but there were no words to make peace with what they were going through.

So, they just sat there listening to the world crumble around them.

****

When Jensen opened his eyes and found himself staring up at a dirty, cobweb-covered ceiling.

It took a moment for his faculties to return and when they did, he closed his eyes and exhaled sharply.

Rolling onto his side, he almost elbowed Misha in the face and despite the horrid situation, he smiled. Misha’s eyes popped open and he groaned heavily.

“Morning sunshine,” Jensen said as he patted him on the arm.

Misha slowly sat up and as he did so, Jensen realized he was staring intently at the cellar door. “What the hell is that?”

Jensen glanced over and his heart raced as he saw the water, it was pouring in through the gaps around the door and a large pool of water had collected on the floor not too far from them.

“Damn it.” He cried out.

The commotion had woken the others from their fitful sleep and it was John who first approached the door.

The others watched as if it were happening in slow motion, as John reached for the handle and as he pushed the door open and disappeared from view, he was stunned at what he saw.

The ground was flooded up to his ankles and there was debris scattered everywhere but what surprised him the most, was the large gaping crevice where the house had once stood.

“You guys need to see this.”

One by one they joined John in staring in shock at the giant pit before them.

“Jesus.” Bobby said as he leaned forward to get a better look. “Now what the hell do we do?”

“Are you kidding me?” Chris cried out. “We’re lucky the damn thing didn’t split the cellar in half and swallow us whole.”

Jared shuddered at the thought of going out that way and he had to back up, he grabbed Jax’s leash and pulled him away from the crevice.

Trudging through the murky water and debris went back into the cellar to get their things before they headed out.

The further they walked away from the old root cellar, the less the flooding became, it had however turned the dirt under their feet into an unpleasant smelling sludge that was a little tricky to trudge through but they were slowly making their way toward dry ground.

After several hours, Jensen couldn't take anymore of it and he desperately wanted to rest.

He desperately wanted to catch a break. They had suffered so much these past few months and he was exhausted.

The further they walked, the further away he felt from his family but he woke up every day, determined not to give up but that resolve was beginning to fade.

He wasn't sure how much more he could take and it was becoming obvious to Misha as well.

He felt his hand on his arm and when he looked up, Misha was standing in front of him. He didn't say anything, he simply wrapped his arms around him and pulled him into an embrace and Jensen collapsed against him.

He just needed to rest, just for a little while.


	5. A Generation Unafraid

When Jensen opened his eyes, the sun was just beginning to break over the horizon and despite the early hour, it was unusually warm.

As he glanced around, he accounted for everyone, except Jared and he was on his feet pretty quickly.

"I'm guessing that none of you know where Jared is?"

"Took Jax for a walk," Chris told him. "So, calm down."

It only made him feel marginally better but he still wanted to find him so he headed off across the field.

There were clusters of trees scattered around and he saw the remains of an old dry creek bed and as he approached, he let out a deep sigh of relief upon seeing Jared standing there.

"Damn it Jare," he cried out. "You scared the hell out of me."

Jared didn't move, didn't even so much as turn to look at him.

When Jensen saw what it was that had him so... distraught, he brought his hand to his mouth and gave his head a shake.

Laying in the long dry grass at the base of one of the trees, where the remains of a woman, in her arms was a small child.

He couldn't really guess how long ago they had died but being out in the open like that, it could have been a few weeks.

Jensen reached out and placed his hand on Jared's shoulder. "We can't do anything for them."

Jared turned to look at him, the sadness was written all over his face and Jensen knew what Jared was thinking, but they really didn't have time for it.

"I get it," he said. "But we can't do anything."

"I know," Jared replied. "It just sucks that no matter what we do, it's not enough. Even if we had have been able to help them, this still probably would have happened."

Jensen patted him on the back and then pulled him into a quick hug before they headed back to the camp.

Jared called out to Jax and he appeared from a group of trees and bounded toward them.

The others were still gathered around the fire and they had prepared a small breakfast.

They ate in silence and when they had finished, they packed up their things and prepared to leave.

Misha let the others go ahead and held Jensen back with him.

"Jen," he said. "I've been wanting to ask you for a long time now but I kept putting it off, I can't anymore because I need to know, what happened to you that day."

Jensen squeezed his eyes shut and inhaled sharply as he recalled the memories of that day.

He didn't really want to talk about it but he knew that at some point, he was going to have to explain it to Misha, today was apparently that day.

He looked over at Misha, who looked sad for him and he hadn't even said anything yet.

"I can't make you talk about it," Misha told him. "But I think it would be good for you, to not keep it bottled up like that."

Jensen sighed again and then nodded back at him.

****

The pen he held in his hand wobbled slightly as his grip around it loosened.

He was slunk as far down in his seat as his height would allow and knees were pressed firmly against the chair in front of him.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he leaned his head on the back of the chair and tried to block out the incessant buzzing noise that was emanating from somewhere within the plane.

They had been sitting on the tarmac for almost 15 minutes now and he still had no idea why they weren’t being allowed to deplane.

As he glanced around, he noticed that everyone else was beginning to lose their patience, one passenger grabbed the arm of a flight attendant as they walked past and tried to get some answers, but he was in too much of a hurry.

Sitting upright in his seat, he looked around as he felt a slight tremble, the plane wasn't moving so he couldn't figure out what was causing it.

After what felt like an eternity, an announcement was made that they could finally deplane.

He grabbed his bag from the overhead bin and waited impatiently for the passengers in front of him to exit the plane.

Once they were on the tarmac, they were quickly escorted into the terminal as the ground shook violently beneath them.

The passengers cried out as shards of glass pelted them as the windows of the building shattered.

As they made their way further inside, he could see that it was quickly turning chaotic, people didn't know what to do, the ground shook so violently and their panic levels rose as the building swayed around them.

As he was making his way toward the baggage terminal, he stopped mid step when he thought he heard the sound of rushing water and before he couldn't determine the cause of it, a huge wall of water smashed into the building.

It crept in through every nook and crevice and filled the terminal so quickly that before he knew it, it was already knee high.

He grabbed onto the nearby railing and held on as hard as he could as the water swirled around him.

It was so powerful that he feared if he loosened his grip on the railing, even a little, it would sweep him away.

Other people weren't so lucky, they were caught off guard and were swept up in the raging water, desperate to find something, anything to grab a hold of.

The cries and screams that echoed around him, made his blood run cold but there was nothing that he could do to help them.

Another huge rush of water came through and he was forced to let go of the railing as it hit him, pain coursed through his body as a piece of debris hit his side and he was 100% sure that it had cut him.

As he was pushed across the room, he somehow managed to grab hold of something, possibly a row of seats and he held on until the water seemed to calm down enough that he was able to stand upright.

The water had to have been at least five feet deep and as he tried to regain his sense, he heard a loud explosion and he watched in horror as the end of the building collapsed in on itself.

He needed to get out of there, find somewhere safe to hold up until he could figure out a plan.

It took him almost 15 minutes to swim his way out of the building and when he was outside, the chaos and destruction stunned him to his core.

As he cautiously swam around the building, he heard people calling out for help and when he glanced upward, he saw that there were people who had taken refuge on the rooftop of the next building.

He couldn't figure out how they had gotten up there. He couldn't see any stairs and he wondered if they had been inside and had used the roof access.

Someone started calling out to him, but there was a ringing in his ears and he couldn't make out the words so he kept swimming around the side of the building.

Finally, he saw the roof a taxi stand and he was able to pull himself up and out of the water.

It took a little maneuvering but he was able to climb onto the roof and once he was up there, he sat on the edge, his legs hanging over the side.

He glanced down at his stomach and saw that his shirt was stained with blood.

He grabbed at the hem and lifted his shirt to reveal a cut across his abdomen. It didn't look too deep so he wasn't overly concerned about right now.

After a while, he got to his feet and joined the others on the other side of the roof, he wasn't entirely sure why they had picked that particular spot.

Jensen saw two men standing near the edge, one of them was holding their cell phone, a huge brick of a thing and he was angrily punching at the numbers.

"It's been five hours," one of the men said. "The phones aren't working and no one is coming for us."

"We don't know that," Jensen replied. "Look around you, it's fucking chaos, it's going to take a while for help to arrive."

"Sure," the man said. "How long exactly are we supposed to wait?"

"As long as it takes," Jensen retorted. "We don't really have a choice."

Help still hadn't arrived the following morning. More survivors had gathered on the rooftop but even more people were still in the water, Jensen couldn't see any survivors though.

But they couldn't stay there too much longer, it had already been too long since they had water and Jensen was desperate to get down off that roof and get to Jared.

It wasn't until later in the day when the water finally began to recede enough that he felt comfortable to get down.

As he reached the round, the water still came up to his thigh, it wasn't ideal but he had to get out of there.

He figured it would take a good few hours or so to make it home, he knew that his family wasn't there but he did know for a fact that Jared was, the Padalecki family lived about 10 minutes north of the Ackles.

As he moved through the water, he kept thinking about Jared, wondering if he was okay, wondering if he was safe.

He tried not to think about it as he waded through the water, careful to avoid as much of the debris as he could.

When he finally reached the Padalecki house, it had been almost a whole day since the flooding had hit.

It had taken far longer to make it to the house than he had hoped it would.

As he pushed open the door and stepped into the kitchen, he saw the damage that had occurred and his heart sank.

He couldn't find any sign of Jared or Jax and as he slumped against the wall, he tried to figure out his next move.

He needed to find other survivors and he assumed the best place to do that, would be the town.

City Hall had a storm shelter and he figured some people would have made it inside in time.

Grabbing a pack from the laundry room, he packed up a few supplies and headed back out into the water.

He didn't come across a single person until he reached the town. He did see a few soldiers waiting on the steps of the building and they told him that an evacuation had already taken place, survivors had been taken to a FEMA Camp in Dallas.

They also told him that another evac wouldn't be leaving for at least another 12 hours.

They assured him that he would be safe inside and they would alert him when the convoy arrived, so he took the opportunity to get some rest and to bandage his wound.

It looked a little worse now than it did earlier but he still knew that he was incredibly lucky, it could have been so much worse.

He did the best he could to cover the wound and after finding a bathroom to clean himself up a little, he joined a group of others in the small cafeteria.

He wasn't sure how long they had been there when a soldier came in to inform them that the convoy would be arriving soon.

A few hours later, the group which consisted of almost 70 people were loaded onto buses.

All the information that they were given was that the camp was in Dallas.

What would have normally been a five-hour trip, took almost two days.

The roads were so badly damaged that they had to take a lot of detours.

When they finally arrived at the camp, it took longer than he wanted to get processed but he did find out that they were keeping good records and Jared's name was listed among them.

But it took about three hours of searching through the rows and rows of tents to find him.

Just when he was about to give up and head back to the main gate for more information, he heard a dog barking.

Of course, it could have been absolutely any dog but when it appeared from between two tents and he saw the golden fur, he squeezed his eyes shut as he felt a tear prick the corner of his eye.

A moment later, he could feel the dog at his feet and when he opened his eyes again and looked down, he saw Jax and he dropped to his knees and hugged the dog.

"Jensen."

Jensen inhaled deeply and got to his feet, Jared stood before him. Neither one said anything, they just embraced and stood that way for the longest time.

"I knew that you would find me." Jared finally said as they continued to stand there.

"Damn straight," Jensen replied. "The world might be going to hell, but you can always guarantee that I'll find you."

****

"Oh my god," Misha whispered. He took a step closer to him and pulled him into a hug. "I'm sorry Jen. I should have stayed with you, I never should have left."

Jensen gave his head a shake. "It's okay. Who in their right mind would have ever predicted that this would happen? All that matters is that we found each other again."

Misha leaned back and lifted one hand and pressed his palm to Jensen's cheek.

"We always will."

They shared a quick kiss before they caught up with the others.

****

The next town they came across looked like a war zone, there were still buildings smoldering and the main road through town was a cracked, impassable mess.

They stopped to check out a few of the buildings and Jensen found a set of stairs that looked rather perilous.

He went into the room that overlooked the street. Broken glass crunched under his feet as he made his way across the room. Charred overturned furniture that lay haphazardly against the walls.

The smell was almost too much to bear and he raised his hand to his mouth to stop himself from gagging.

There were two sets of windows in the room but the glass was missing and despite the light breeze outside, none of it was affecting the inside.

Stepping away from the window, he scanned the rest of the room, in the east corner, the flood had burned away leaving a gaping hole that gave him a view of the room below and he was given a little fright when he saw Chris walk past.

"You scared the hell out of me," Jensen called out.

He could hear Chris' laughing and he gave his head a shake.

He was careful not to get too close though, he knew that with the weakened structure, the floor could give out at any moment.

He tried not to inhale too deeply as he ventured through the building and as he pushed open the warped door to what he thought had been an office, a cloud of ash filled the air and he coughed several times to clear it from his lungs.

After thoroughly inspecting the place, he concluded that there was nothing here, he figured it would be the same for most of the buildings.

He took the stairs two at a time, his heart pounding in his chest and ears and he was fighting to get enough air into his lungs.

He stepped through the doorway and doubled over in pain as he tried to catch his breath.

He heard voices and when he looked up, he saw the others gathered around, they had about as much luck as he had.

A loud popping noise echoed around them and it took far too long to realize what was going on.

They weren't alone, there was someone else there and that someone had a powerful gun.

Bullets ricocheted around them and as they took cover, Jensen heard Felicia cry out.

No one was able to get to her though, both Jared and Chris tried but there was too much of a gap between them and they could do nothing but watch her lie there, screaming out in pain.

"Is everyone else okay?" Jeff called out.

He got several responses but not quite enough.

"Bobby, answer me," Jeff said. "Are you okay?"

There was still no answer and Jensen felt his heart sink.

"Bobby!"

Whoever was shooting at them, clearly had enough bullets to keep this up for a while.

"We need to do something about this." Jeff said.

"Yeah well, if I could get out from behind this fucking fence, I might be able to get a shot in," Chris replied. "You got a weapon Jensen?"

He glanced over to where Jensen and Misha were crouched down behind the fence and nodded. "Yeah, I have a gun."

"Going to need some cover," Chris called out. "Now."

There wasn't a whole lot that they could do but there was a piece of debris near Jeff, he reached over and picked it up and after glancing at Chris, he lifted it into the air and a volley of shots hurtled towards him.

Chris had never moved so fast in his life, he darted across the street and took cover under an awning.

As he bolted down the street, he had seen where the shots were coming from, the building directly opposite where they were taking cover.

He would need to get inside and sneak up on the shooter, of course, he had no idea if it was just one person but he would deal with that as it came.

He made his way up to the second floor and after checking a couple of rooms, he found the shooter, he had a rifle set up at the window.

He had to be careful about this, he couldn't give himself away so after calming himself down, he took a small step to the side and raised his gun.

Pulling the trigger, the bullet sailed towards the man and hit him in the back, he dropped his rifle and half spun, half fell toward the floor and Chris fired another shot.

It wasn't something that he thought he would ever have to do but this new world changed things.

After checking to make sure the guy was dead, he walked over to the window and called out to the others.

But when he got back to them, his heart sank.

Lying on the ground in a pool of blood, was Felicia and next to her, was Bobby.

They both had been hit multiple times and even if they had managed to get to them sooner, they wouldn't have been able to save them.

It was going to be a rough night, that night.

****

After burying their friends, they set themselves up on the edge of town.

No one really said much, there wasn't much that they could say, not after the day they had had.

Jensen couldn't help but watch Jeff, Bobby had been his friend for a really long time and losing him like this, it was such a pointless death.

The mood over the group remained low as they camped out for the next few days. No one had any motivation to do anything other than sleep and mourn.

Finally, on the third day of being camped out in that field, Jeff announced that he was ready to keep moving.

That they couldn't stay there and that Jim wouldn't have wanted them to mope around.

****

As they approached the next town's border, Jeff instructed them to check their weapons, to make sure that they could reach them in a matter of seconds.

They were running low on ammo so they would have to be careful but he didn't want a repeat of the previous week.

They passed a sign for the town, it had been toppled sideways and as they kept moving, they realized that the ground was covered in a layer of ash and the further they walked, the deeper it seemed to get.

The smell of charred wood and burning rubber filled their nostrils and Jared gagged a little at the stench.

"What do you think happened here?" Chris asked no one in particular. "Anyone says a fire, I will shoot you."

"Well if it helps at all, a normal fire doesn't destroy brick," Misha said as he pointed to the decimated remains of a house across the street and the one next to that.

Jared was walking along normally when all of a sudden he stopped and cried out in pain.

Jensen walked over to him and motioned towards Jared's leg. "It's still hurting?"

Jared nodded back at him. "Yeah, a little but it will be fine."

"What are you talking about?" Jeff wanted to know.

"He twisted his ankle a few days ago," Jensen said. "You need to take some more pills."

Jensen grabbed the bag that Misha was carrying and rifling through it, he pulled out a slightly crushed box of painkillers and handed two of them to Jared.

Once he had taken the pills, they kept moving. They didn't plan on staying in this place for long, they were literally going to pass through and when they reached the edge of town, they saw yet another open field.

The tall grass scratched at their skin as they walked and it was slightly muddy under their feet but it wasn't enough to slow them down.

They had no idea what they were walking toward, for all they knew they could have been heading toward a cliff.

"We need to get the hell out of this field and find somewhere to stop." Jensen said after they had been walking for several more hours.

"Yes please," Jared added. "My ankle is killing me, I need to rest it."

Jeff glanced over at them. "Yeah okay, sounds good."

"I'm going to keep going, I want to see just how far this field goes." Jensen said.

Jeff nodded again Jensen disappeared into the long grass.

He was able to move fairly quickly, he used his arms to push the grass out of the way while he tried to keep his gaze on the ground in front of him.

Slowing down just a little, he glanced up and thought that the grass was starting to thin out a little and the patches of dirt were growing larger.

He wanted to keep running but as the grass became less and less, he slowed to a walk and eventually the grass came to an end and he stepped into a small clearing.

Beyond that clearing were clusters of trees and he thought he could hear the sound of trickling water.

He took a few tentative steps forward and he quickly realized that on the other side of the trees, there was a very small almost dry creek, barely a foot deep.

As he crossed over the creek and kept moving, he eventually came to a road but it wasn’t just a simple road, it was a freeway. With renewed hope, he ran back to the camp to tell the others.

He had run so fast that it took him a few minutes to catch his breath before he explained it to the others and as excited as they were, they agreed that they would wait until the morning.


	6. For Years to Come, Be Brave

Jensen reached over and picked up the small metal bowl and stuck his spoon into and pushed around the beans that consisted of his dinner.

It tasted like crap but they were beginning to run low on provisions so they were having to be careful.

When he glanced over at Jared, he saw that he was already finished eating and had settled in next to the fire.

Early the next morning, after an anxious night of sleep, the group headed off across the field, the excitement at stepping onto the asphalt highway gave them all a sense of renewed hope.

They traveled the highway for most of the day until it began to branch off into different directions.

Two of the new pathways that lay before them were impassable but the third, the road was clear, for the most part.

The terrain had changed enough that they weren't 100% sure of where they were but they had a rough idea.

Just before dusk, after traveling the only road they could take, they found themselves standing in front of a large set of gates.

When they had set out that morning, never in their wildest dreams did they ever think that it would lead to this?

And they weren't even sure what 'this' was.

Whatever was on the other side was being heavily guarded and that both scared and excited them.

They could noise from beyond the walls, there were people talking, laughing, living.

They couldn't know of course, just how many people were on the other side but the mere fact that they had found some sort of settlement, it was unbelievable.

Several minutes passed and the gates suddenly creaked open and a moment later, two men and one woman, escorted by security guards, greeted them.

"Welcome to Cayden," the woman said. "My name is Cassandra O'Keefe," she turned to the two men. "This is Jonathon Evans and Derek Anderson. We understand that you've been through a lot, so if you would follow us, we can escort you to intake and get you settled in."

Jensen glanced over at Jared and they both exhaled sharply.

This was possibly the place that they had been looking for. There was a chance, however small, that their families were beyond those walls.

Jeff lead the group through the gates and they followed Cassandra.

There were groups of people scattered about, they were talking and laughing amongst themselves, they looked happy and they looked safe.

Cassandra led them to a smallish building that was clearly being used as a sheriff's station.

Once they were inside, they took seats around a large table and a few minutes later, two young men came in carrying clipboards and pens and they placed one of each in front of them and when Jensen glanced down, he saw that it was a document, similar to a form you would fill out a Doctor's office.

"We need some information from you," Cassandra explained. "Names, date of birth, were you came from. If you have any medical issues that need to be addressed, please list those and also any family members that you are searching for, give as much detail as you can."

Jared glanced up at her, eyes wide. "How many people are here?"

Cassandra smiled back at him. "When we first established this settlement, we weren't exactly hopeful that the population would be extensive but in the months since its founding, we now have a population of almost 18,000 residents, with more like yourselves arriving daily."

"So, there's a chance then," Jared replied. "That our families could have made it here?"

She smiled again. “There is a chance, yes. That is why we require as much detail about you and them as we can. If your family members made it to Cayden, we want to make sure that you find them.”

Jared looked over at Jensen who looked as hopeful as he felt. “Do you think it’s even possible that they could be here?”

After a moment, Jensen shrugged his shoulders. “I mean sure, it’s possible. I would like to think that they made it but I also don’t want to get my hopes up.”

Jared nodded back at him as he looked over at Jeff and Chris, they were furiously filling in the information on the forms.

Rachel leaned forward and picked up her pen and began writing, Misha and Jensen followed suit.

****

Almost an hour later, they were being escorted back out of the ‘admin’ building. They had been assigned housing, they would be put up in a four-bedroom house on the east side of Cayden. They were given I.D tags with their names, their new address and the date in which they had arrived.

They were all surprised when an old Toyota Landcruiser pulled up beside them. 

It was nice to once again see working vehickles, this one looked to be in better shape than the old truck they had used for a few days.

Cassandra turned to face him. “We actually have six vehicles. It took a few months but a team was able to restore them. This one here will take you to your new home. When you arrive, there will be a proxy waiting for you, they will give you information on city rules, when and where to collect your provisions and will begin working with you to find employment or training.”

“So, Cayden is a functioning city?” Chris asked. “People have jobs and the like?”

Cassandra nodded back at him. “It’s been a slow process and without a power grid, even more so but we’re working to rebuild some form of normalcy. We want able-bodied people to be able to work or retrain, we want children to be able to go to school. It’s going to take a lot of work but I have hope that we will succeed.”

“That’s great and all,” Chris said. “What about security, the safety of these people. It’s been months and there are still earthquakes, flooding, fires.”

Cassandra nodded back at him. “I understand your concerns and that forms part of the reason this specific location was chosen to rebuild. There are no high-rise buildings, we are far enough inland that any threat of tsunamis is limited, we’re not located near any mountain ranges and as far as we’re aware there are no major Fault Lines. Damage will occur but we can withstand it. All things considered; Cayden is as safe a place as there is.”

Cassandra motioned for them to get into the jeep and a few minutes later, they were being driven to their new home.

It was a modest house but would be large enough to accommodate them comfortably.

It was only a four bedroom so they would have to double up but given the places they had slept over the past several months; this was going to be a dream. 

The house had already been prepared, there were food rations, plenty of water and there were even clothes and toiletries.

For most of the afternoon, they just took some time to sit and rest and a little after five o’clock they sat down for their first full meal in weeks.

That night, each one of them slept properly for the first time in months, they didn’t have to worry about feeling safe or warm and the following morning when they gathered in the kitchen for breakfast, they all looked and felt better.

Around midday, their proxy, Amanda, came by to inform them that they were needed at a meeting at the town hall, it was required of all new residents so they could receive updates and with any luck, be reunited with any missing loved ones.

There were about 40 new residents there, they were given a couple of pages of documents to read, updates and reports that had come in from across the country. They were sporadic at best but it was nice to be kept in the loop.

Even if that loop meant knowing that the damage in most parts of the country was extensive and the death toll was in the millions, double figures.

After the rather depressing meeting, they decided to wander around a little, check out the city.

Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, despite the still ever-present earthquakes, they were just happy to be somewhere safe where they didn't have to worry about finding enough food to eat.

Not long after, they came across a school, there were a couple of dozen children running around playing, it was a sight for sore eyes to see something so completely normal and for a couple of minutes, they stood there watching.

It was then that they knew that this could be a place for them to fight for, a new home.

Two days later, they were summoned to the town hall for what they believed to be another meeting but this time, it was only Jensen and Jared who were required.

As they made their way to town, they each had a million thoughts racing through their minds, they desperately wanted it to be good news but they also had to prepare themselves for the worst.

They walked into the town hall and found Cassandra was in one of the offices, she was talking to a couple of people but she waved at them and then pointed to the door across the hall.

"I'll meet you there in a few minutes."

Jensen nodded back at her and they made their way across the hall.

When they stepped through the door, he almost screamed at what he saw and then he felt Jared grabbed his arm.

Sitting at the table, were their mothers, Sherri and Donna, their younger sister's Megan and Mackenzie and Jared's older brother Jeff.

The very thing they had been searching for months now, was right in front of them.

From that first moment when they had felt the first tremors under their feet until now, it had been moment after moment of wanting this day to come, to find their families.

"How did you end up here?" Jensen asked.

"Albuquerque was evacuated the first day, we were transported to a FEMA Camp in Denver where were spent several weeks before being brought here."

"Josh, Dad and Allan left more than a month ago to try and find you." Megan added.

"And of course you haven't heard from them since." Jared said.

Megan shook her head. "No, it's not like they can call or anything but I believe that we'll see them again, I knew we would see you, so..."

Jared leaned forward and pulled his little sister into a hug.

"I'm sure they'll be okay," Jensen added. "Did they have any sort of time frame for their search."

"They did," Donna said. "They agreed that if they hadn't found you after 90 days, they would come back."

Jensen exhaled sharply. "They're still out there and I guess they will be for another several weeks yet."

He glanced over at Jared and the two shared a concerned look.

"I'm hopeful that they're safe, that they know what to do," Sherri said. "They'll be okay."

****

They had been in Cayden for two weeks now and while they were settling in okay, it still felt off, it didn't feel like home yet.

Jensen knew why it felt that way, they were still waiting for their father's return, it wouldn't feel normal until they were safe.

Rachel's parents had shown up at a few days prior but she had received bad news about her brother so she was spending a few days with her parents.

More people were arriving daily, so the others hadn't given up hope that they would find the people they cared about.

As more time passed, they began to ingratiate themselves into the community.

Jeff and Chris were already working and Misha had happily agreed to retrain as a teacher.

Jensen for some reason thought it was hilarious but at the same time, knew that he would be perfect at it.

But Jensen and Jared still weren't entirely sure they wanted to do, Jensen was a college grad but his chosen field wasn't exactly a needed requirement in this new world and Jared was only just out of high school and was deciding what he wanted to do with his life.

One day, while Jared was checking out the options for training at the new Cayden college, he met another survivor, a young woman named Adrienne, who had miraculously made her way from New York.

They connected immediately and began spending a lot of time together. It made Jensen happy to see Jared happy and doing well.

****

It was now nine days past the 'deadline' and Gerald, Allan and Josh hadn't come back yet.

There was a part of Jensen that wanted to go out there and search for them but he knew that it would be a pointless endeavor, to go out and look for someone who was looking for you.

The most logical plan was to stay put but he couldn't shake the need to go out there.

Jeff had made a suggestion that they could make a day trip out of it, leave some sort of message along the way to let them know that they had made it to Cayden and were safe.

It took a few days to make the arrangements, they had made a deal with Cassandra, they would be granted permission to use one of the vehicles and they would place signs and messages to let other survivors know that Cayden existed and was safe.

Jensen, Jeff, and Chris decided to go while Jared stayed behind, he of course wanted to go with them but he had re-injured his ankle a few days prior and had to stay behind.

He had Misha and Adrienne to keep him company but there were no amount of distractions that would stop him from worrying about Jensen and the others.

The sun had barely broken the horizon when they left the following morning.

For the longest time Jared, Misha, and Adrienne stood there, even after the jeep had disappeared through the gates.

"Okay, this is crazy," Misha said. “We need to find something to do, besides, they're only going to be gone a day."

Jared gave his head a shake. "I can't help it; I have this feeling that something is going to happen and the plan is to be gone for a day but I think it's going to be longer than that."

Misha sighed heavily as he guided Jared toward the front porch of the house.

Jared and Adrienne sat down on the swing seat while Misha rested against the rail.

"I know how you're feeling," Misha told him. "I'm terrified that he won't come back but after everything that we've been through, I have to make myself believe that he'll be back."

"So," Adrienne said. "How long have you and Jensen been together?"

Misha glanced over at her and then shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh come on, you can't stand there and tell me that you don't know."

"Of course he knows," Jared said. "Junior year of high school. Misha transferred from his school in Boston and three days later, they were skipping classes to hook up in the..."

"Yeah okay," Misha said, cutting him off. "I think we all get the idea."

"You know, I heard that there are almost 20,000 people here now," Adrienna said, changing the subject. "I heard that they're also talking about electing a city council as well. Things are slowly returning to normal."

"Whatever the hell that's going to be now."

"And the factory too," Adrienne added. "That's a big deal."

"It could be," Misha said. "But without a power grid, not sure how useful it's going to be."

"But there's a chance that we could get power back though."

"I have no idea," Misha replied. "We created a power grid once before, so maybe it could be done again but who knows."

For a while, they just sat there but as the time ticked away, they knew that they couldn't just sit around worrying all day, they needed to find something to occupy their time.

****

Just as Jared had feared, when the sunset, there was no sign of their return and he knew that it would be a sleepless night.

He was still sharing a house with Jensen, Misha, and Chris so he wouldn't be on his own at least. Adrienne had agreed to stay as well.

It was a restless sleep and when the sun rose the next morning and there was still no sign of their return Jared began to worry.

No one could reassure him that even though the plan had been for a day trip, the likelihood of that happening was slim, they could be gone for a week or longer.

They tried to remain calm and stick to their daily routine but it was easier said than done.

****

By day 14, Jared was beginning to lose it a little. Sherri was doing her best to keep him calm and had spent the past few days trying to talk him out of going out there to find them.

After having dinner with his mother and sister, he went home to wait out another night with Misha and Adrienne.

They were in the middle of their hundredth board game when they were interrupted by the sound of an incredibly loud siren.

Adrienne and Misha were at the window in an instant but they couldn't see anything.

"What the hell is that?" Jared asked.

"No idea," Misha replied. "But we need to find out."

They made their way out to the street and saw a crowd gathering and Misha made his way over to one of their neighbors, Mark.

"What's going on?"

"That's the medical siren." Mark told him.

"Medical Siren?"

"Yeah, in the event of a serious medical event, they sound of an alarm to let the health care workers know that they are needed immediately at the gate."

Misha glanced over at Jared and they both shared the same concerned look.

The three of them followed a couple of others to the gate, it took almost 10 minutes but when they got there, they saw a large crowd gathered near the check-in office at the gate.

There was a vehicle parked there and a group of people had gathered around it.

He could hear people shouting out instructions but they still had no idea what was going on.

As they got closer, Jared's eyes widened in surprise when he saw Jeff and Gerald standing near the jeep. They looked a little worse for wear and Jared raced toward them.

He gave each of them a hug before taking a step back to ask a million questions.

"What's going on?"

"We were on our way back, a town about three hours south of here when we were uh... Josh was badly injured, he was shot." Gerald explained.

They both stared at him in shock.

"What about the others?" Misha asked. "Are they okay?"

After what felt like an eternity, Jeff pointed to the other crowd of people, he could see someone lying on the ground.

He ran over and could see Allan and his heart sank when he realized that it was Jensen who was lying on the ground.

He pushed his way in and dropped to his knees at Jensen's side.

He was covered in blood but he was awake and staring up at the sky.

"Oh god." Misha whispered under his breath.

There was a Doctor who was frantically trying to stop the bleeding.

"What happened?"

"We were ambushed by a group of people who tried to take the jeep," Allan explained. "They started firing and Jensen and Josh were hit."

Misha swallowed around the lump that had formed in his throat. "Hit, where?"

Allan pointed at Jensen's shoulder, blood oozed through his shirt and pooled on the ground underneath him.

"Will he be okay?"

The Doctor glanced up at Misha and Allan. "It looks like it was a through and through, it didn't hit any major organs so he should make a full recovery."

Misha let out the breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding and he quickly hugged Allan before taking a step back to let the Doctor work on Jensen.

"I'm so glad that you're okay," Misha told him. "We were all starting to freak out a little."

“So were we,” he replied. “We weren’t sure if we were going to make it back or not. It took us longer to make our way back to Cayden than it did leaving. Every day it got so much worse. For the people who are left out there, it’s gone beyond desperation. There is no food, the water is becoming too dangerous to drink and there aren’t many places left to feel safe.”

“How far did you get?” Misha asked him.

“We made it all the way back to Dallas but there was so much destruction that we had to give up searching, we couldn’t even get into the city.”

****

Later that night, Misha, Jared, and Chris were sitting in Jensen's room, he was going to be kept at the medical center for a few days to rest properly.

Josh was in surgery to try and repair the damage. They had been concerned about him going into surgery, without power they were having to rely on rather old generators to provide light and power to the equipment.

The rest of their families and friends were scattered about the med center as they awaited news.

"We're never leaving this place." Misha said.

Jared glanced over at him and narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean? This building specifically?"

Misha gave his head a shake. "No, I mean Cayden. It's too dangerous out there. I can't risk anything like this happening again, I just can't."

Jared closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. He understood what Misha meant, he was also referring to the day that Bobby and Felicia had been killed.

It felt like years had passed since that day but he remembered every moment of it so clearly. He figured that he would remember it for the rest of their lives.

But he didn't want to forget it, they deserved that much, to be remembered for their bravery, for everything that they had been through.

Jared was brought back to reality when the door to Jensen's room opened and his parents walked in.

He could tell that his mother had been crying but he had no idea if the news was good or bad.

Misha had dozed off at some point and Jared sat up and reached over, tapping him on the shoulder.

"Mom, what's going on, is everything alright?"

She stepped up to him and took his hands in hers. "We just got word from one of the nurses. Josh's surgery went well, they removed the bullet."

Jared studied her for a moment. "Okay, that's great. What aren't you telling me?"

"They have no idea if he'll walk again, it could be weeks before they have any answers."

Jared inhaled sharply as he glanced at both of his parents. "Okay well uh... that part is not great but he's alive and that's all that matters."

Sherri pulled him into a hug. "It is and we'll be okay, we'll deal with whatever comes."

****

Two days later, Jared was back at the medical center, this time Jensen was being released.

He was still in a bit of pain and he was looking at a recovery time of a few months.

Jensen's parents wanted him to stay with them while he recovered but he was determined to stay at the house with Misha and Jared.

Once they had him settled in and he was comfortable, thanks to a dose of painkillers, Jared and Misha took up residence in the armchairs they had dragged into the bedroom.

"You guys don't have to sit here all day, I'm sure you have things that you need to do."

Misha gave his head a shake. "Not a chance in hell. We're not leaving."

Jensen turned to look at Jared. "What about Josh?"

"He's okay," Jared explained. "Alive and awake but he's going to be at the med center for awhile."

"I appreciate the love," Jensen replied. "But I'm going to be fine, so maybe you should go and see your brother."

"I will but he's asleep right now and probably will be for awhile," Jared told him. "I'll go and visit him this afternoon, right now, I just want to hang out with you."

"Fine," Jensen replied. "I guess that's cool."

****

Two weeks after being released from the hospital, Jensen was finally back on his feet and had been given the all clear to begin using his arm.

His shoulder still ached and he was warned that it could be a few months before he was completely healed.

Overall he didn't feel too bad considering, but Misha was rather adamant to keep an eye on him, he didn't want him overdoing it and causing further injury to himself.

As he recovered, life slowly began to return to normal.

It wasn't like before though, it would never be like it was before but things were improving.

There was still the threat of earthquakes and storms but Cayden was dealing with them rather well, all things considering.

And more people were arriving daily.

The more survivors that showed up, the greater the hope Jensen felt that there was a future for humanity.

A future that just a few months ago, seemed impossible.


	7. Dust into Dust, Father to Son

Jared was sitting on the porch swing enjoy the cool summer breeze when he glanced up and saw Jensen walk through the front door, he was holding two cups of coffee and he held one out to him.

"How's everything going in there?" Jared asked.

Jensen exhaled sharply as he sat down. "It's fucking crazy. One was really hard work but we were managing fine, now that we have two, I swear to god, it's not just twice the work, it's a hundred times."

Jared gave his head a shake as he chuckled to himself.

"Oh come on, it can't be that bad," Jared replied. "Besides, it's what you and Misha wanted."

"It is," Jensen said. "But at the same time, what the fuck were we thinking."

Jared chuckled again and then shifted in the seat, his expression serious. "You weren't thinking about yourselves, you were thinking of those poor children who had lost their parents and needed new families."

"Yeah, I guess."

"A year ago, when Wyatt was brought in," Jared continued. "There was a chance that another family would be able to take him in but you and Misha stood up and didn't hesitate to take him on and now look at her, he's doing so well and now you have Cole and you're going to be great for him too."

As if on cue, they could hear footsteps and when they turned toward the door, a small blonde haired boy came barreling toward them.

"Dada."

Jensen smiled down at him as the boy approached and he leaned forward, scooping the two-year-old into his arms.

"What are you doing out there kiddo, you should be napping."

Wyatt giggled loudly as he wriggled in his arms.

A moment later, Misha appeared in the doorway and exhaled sharply.

"He was asleep," Misha said. "He just waited until Cole was asleep before he snuck out and escaped."

Jensen ruffled Wyatt's hair before handing him over to Misha.

Misha took the boy back into the house and Jensen could hear them giggling as they made their way upstairs.

He smiled again, despite everything that they had been through and the past two years of finding normal he now had a new reason to continue fighting.

He was someone's parent now and that had brought out a different side of him, it wasn't the same as it had been with Jared or his own family, this was new and it was strong.

He had heirs now and he was determined to make them the bravest heirs of all.

He had fought so hard for his friends and family to get where they were today and he would teach those same values to his sons.

It had been two years since their lives changed forever. They were still dealing with the aftermath, the recurring earthquakes and storms, they also still lacked the knowledge of what caused it all to begin within the first place.

There were too many conflicting stories to come to a conclusion so while they were trying to live normal lives, they needed to be prepared in the event of another world-changing incident.

****

Jensen and Misha had dropped off the kids with his parents and they were heading out for the day, Misha was helping out with an afternoon program at the school while Jensen had signed up to be a part of the team that was expanding Cayden.

Along with Jared, Chris and Jeff, they were spending the majority of the weekend surveying the land outside of the current city border.

They were in need of at least 20 new homes, there hadn't really been an expansion done in the two years since they had arrived and even now, there were still people showing up at the gates.

Survivors who were worn down and beaten to the point of finally giving up, they had stumbled across the city by chance and were given a new hope that they would be okay, that the struggles they had been through weren't for nothing.

There were still some rough days of course, the earthquakes were a little less frequent but they were still stressful and had caused various amounts of damage over the years and the occasional storm would roll through that would be so severe that they couldn't even leave the house, but it was still a lot safer inside those walls than it was outside.

As he approached city hall, he could see Jared and Chris waiting on the steps, there were several other people gathered around and he recognized most of them and was good friends with about half.

A few minutes later, he saw Jeff and Mark come out of the building. Mark was the project manager, he was also their neighbor and had become a friend.

Once Mark had checked everyone in, he led them to the back of the building to the office that had been set up for this specific task.

There were papers and documents scattered across the tables, blueprints for the proposed new area and old maps that weren't entirely useful anymore.

They knew that this was going to take a while before the new suburb was completed but the sooner that they could get started, the better.

"How are the teams going with clearing the west woods?" Chris asked. "I heard that they were having water problems."

Jensen narrowed his eyes at him. "What are you talking about, what water problem?"

Mark sighed heavily as he placed a stack of papers onto the table. "Every time they remove a tree, water floods the area, it's been happening for weeks now."

Jensen had no idea what he was talking about. Neither did Chris.

"And you have no idea what's causing it, do you have the water tables for the area?"

"Of course we do but the tables we have, show that there isn't water in that area, at least not enough to produce the amount that we're seeing."

"Okay, so what does that mean?" Jared wanted to know.

"It means we still have a lot of work to do." Mark told him.

****

Jensen slumped down on the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table.

He could hear Misha moving around in the kitchen and a few minutes later, he appeared carrying a cup of coffee which Jensen happily accepted.

"How did it go out there?" Misha asked as he sat down beside him.

"Not how we thought it would," Jensen told him. "We were supposed to be surveying the east side of the boundary but we ended up having to inspect the west side."

"What do you mean, what happened?"

"Honestly, we're not even sure. Something about a large body of water not being where it should be."

Misha narrowed his eyes at him, nothing about what he just said made any sense.

"I don't think that it's anything too serious," Jensen told him when he noticed Misha's concerned expression. "We're still moving forward with the expansion, we just might have to find the resources elsewhere."

"Okay, well if you're sure. Misha said.

Jensen nodded back at him. "I am sure, so don't worry."

Jensen finished his coffee and placed the cup onto the table and laid down, resting his head on Misha's lap and within minutes, he was sound asleep.

****

The team had spent almost a month mapping out the area and preparing the sites.

Things had been made exponentially more difficult with no power but they were chipping away at it and they were making progress, slowly.

They hoped that in a few weeks they would have all 20 sites cleared out and the builders would be able to come in.

Over the past few days, Misha had been helping them out, Jensen figured it was because he liked being on the other side of the wall.

He couldn't blame him for that though, there was something incredibly freeing about being out there.

They were about to call it a day when Mark called them over, he placed a small cooler down onto the table in front of them.

"Not many of these lying around anymore but I thought that we deserved a drink."

He opened the cooler and pulled out a bottle of beer.

"Shit, I wouldn't say no to a beer." Chris said.

As they sat around the table, watching the sunset and drinking their beer.

It was about as normal as anything could get and Jensen relished in the moment.

When the sun finally disappeared, they gathered up their things and headed back behind the wall.

"I was thinking," Jared said as they were making their way home. "I might bring Echo over tomorrow. I thought that Wyatt might like to play with him."

"Yeah, he would love that," Jensen replied. "We'll see you tomorrow."

They stood and watched for a moment as Jared crossed the street and disappeared around the corner.

Six months after arriving in Cayden, he had moved out of the house and was now sharing one with Chris and Adrienne a couple of streets over.

When they got home, they found Donna in the living room with the boys, who were curled up on the couch, fast asleep.

"How did it go today?" Jensen asked her.

"It was good," she replied. "Cole took a few steps this afternoon, I just wished that we still had cameras so that I could have captured the moment for you."

Jensen sat down on the edge of the coffee table and stared down at his sons. To hear that he had missed a moment like that, bummed him out but in this new world, he had to deal with things like this happening.

"Well I'll leave you two to put them to bed," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

****

Early the next morning, Jared arrived with Echo.

The moment that Wyat laid eyes on him, his whole face lit up and they barreled through the living room and Jensen cringed when they almost knocked the end table over.

Jensen exhaled sharply as he folded his arms across his chest.

"You know that Wyatt is going to be heartbroken when you leave, now he's going to want a dog." Jensen told him.

Jared gave his shoulders a shrug. "Yeah, I did think about that but that's a you problem."

Jensen narrowed his eyes at him. "Thanks."

"You know," Misha said as he came into the room. "I was a little surprised that you got a new dog, I mean after Jax..."

Jared lowered his gaze to the floor before he looked back up at them. "I went back and forth for more than a year after Jax passed but he had a good long life and Adrienne thought it would be good for me."

"I agree," Jensen said. "So, do you wanna stay for breakfast, then maybe we could take them to the park?"

Jared nodded back at him. "Sounds good."

****

A few days later, Jensen, Jared, and Misha were walking back from the work site.

It was getting really late, it must have been almost 10 o'clock already.

Donna was with the boys, so they had missed their bedtime but they had the next few days off and had planned to spend as much time with the kids as they could.

As they approached the edge of the park, they could see the gates across the street, the light was a little lacking and there was a lot of cloud coverage tonight.

"I'm pretty sure we're going to get slammed by a storm tonight." Jared said as they heard thunder echoing around them.

"What gave it away?" Jensen replied as he stopped and stared up at the sky. He glanced over at Misha. "Looks like we might be spending the weekend with the boys inside."

Misha gave his shoulders a shrug. "I'm alright with that."

Another boom echoed around them and Jared wrapped his arms around himself as the rain began to fall.

It came on quickly and before they knew it, they were soaked through, of course, the rain lasted only long enough to drench them.

Jensen and Misha began walking again but Jared called out to them.

He was still staring up at the sky and when they walked back over to him, they saw that he was pointing at something.

"What the hell is that?" Jared asked.

Jensen strained his eyes to see what it was that Jared was seeing.

"Tell me that you can see what I'm seeing," Jared continued. "You can see it right?"

Jensen glanced over at Misha and it was clear that he was struggling to see it as well.

"Jared, I'm trying, I really am," Jensen replied. "But I don't see anything."

Jared shifted to the right just a little and pointed again. "Right there, those lights."

Jensen took a step closer and his eyes grew wide when he finally saw it, strange lights in the sky, lights, unlike anything he had ever seen before.

He glanced down when he felt Misha grab his hand and he sucked in a deep breath.

"What the hell is going on?" Jared asked. "What are those?"

The three of them stood at the edge of the park, staring up at the darkened sky and watched as the strange blue lights danced around the sky.

"Jensen, what do we do now?"


End file.
